Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lois wasn’t a romcom girl, but even she was familiar with the old chestnut about men and women being unable to be friends with each other without things getting weird and messy. For her part, maintaining friendships with people of any gender was hard. A childhood spent moving between different military bases wasn’t conducive to putting down roots or creating deep, lasting friendships. Even after getting hired at the Daily Planet, she didn’t have friends, she had colleagues (and rivals).

Then he showed up.

At first, Lois hadn’t taken much notice of Clark Kent. That is to say, she obviously noticed him - he was kind of unnecessarily large - but she didn’t think much of him professionally. He went to a no-name school in one of the flyover states and she didn’t think he’d last a week under Perry White’s benevolent dictatorship. This was his first professional job out of college and, in her opinion, the fast-paced world of big city journalism was just not the right fit for a guy whose parents literally made a living watching grass grow. 

(Okay, yes, to be fair, working at the Planet was also her first professional job out of college, but while she and Clark essentially had the same CVs, she interned under Perry for a year before she was hired full-time which basically made her a veteran and more than qualified to cast aspersions on her colleagues.)

Clark lasted the one week. Then two more weeks. It took about a month before Lois grudgingly admitted to herself that he was actually…kind of…in a manner of speaking… really good at his job. Shortly thereafter, she realized he was also a really good person. The two were strangely intertwined - there was something inherently trustworthy about Clark that made people feel comfortable, that made them feel safe to talk to him - often with more candor than was wise - when he asked them questions. 

This ineffable quality Lois mistook, at first, for naivete, but it turned out Clark was just a naturally enthusiastic and curious person. When she asked someone, “How was your weekend?” (a question she almost never asked), she neither wanted nor cared for any answer other than, “Fine,” or, if she was in a friendly mood, “Pretty good.”

When Clark asked the same question, with genuine interest, he got real stories. Family histories. Anecdotes. His ability to get people talking extended beyond the water cooler to interview subjects, transforming small talk into smoking gun quotes. 

Even she wasn’t immune to what was becoming known around the office as the Kent Charm Offensive. First, it was just joining him for a coffee run, making chit chat in line. Turned out he had a dry, snarky sense of humor, decent taste in movies, and a surprisingly eclectic taste in music.

They became friends. Like, to the point where they would call each other to talk on the phone using their voices in real time, a feature that Lois only ever used to make doctors’ appointments. And then there was TV and Takeout. 

That clinched it for her, Clark’s Genuine Nice Guy (as opposed to NiceGuyTM) status. A show they both liked had gone off streaming, but Lois had the DVDs. She invited him over to eat pizza and binge watch the first season. He accepted and arrived with a bottle of screw top wine and a six pack of seltzer. They split the bottle, ate the pizza, watched the show, and at no point did Clark try to make a move on her. 

He sat on one side of the couch and though he draped an arm along the back of the sofa, he never tried to touch her.  Around ten o’clock he checked the time, cleaned up the remains of their meal, thanked her for letting him come over, and went home. No awkward pauses in the doorway, expecting her to ask him to stay, no sidelong glances at her closed bedroom door. He didn’t even look at her with a hangdog expression and ask if he could have a hug.  

Granted, the bar for acceptable behavior for an adult man toward an adult woman was so low as to be subterranean, but Clark nevertheless cemented himself in her mind as trustworthy that night. 

Of course, a weekly tradition of TV and Takeout did not completely send all of Lois’s cynical walls tumbling down. The ultimate test of his trustworthiness and her ability to put stock in it came to a head following an all-staff meeting at the Planet .

There was a shake-up in the vacation policy that had Perry raving about attacks on the free press. The reality was nothing close to a constitutional crisis: the old policy, which guaranteed 147 hours of PTO, with unlimited rollover, was fairly generous on paper. In practice, among a staff of people who followed their boss’s example of looking at vacation time as a test of their mettle (a test which one failed if they took time off for anything other than a dire emergency), the average amount of time most Planet staff took was in the low 50s. This resulted in hundreds and hundreds of hours of banked vacation time - per employee. A recent retirement spree alarmed the payroll office so much that they implemented a 35-hour rollover limit, effective immediately.

People had to use it or lose it. Which meant that long dreamed-of cruises, camping trips, European vacations, and the like were getting booked left, right, and center. 

Lois didn’t have the money for anything elaborate and was instead looking forward to a long, miserable week burning through her PTO on her couch, working out of sheer desperation for something to do. She’d been complaining about this to Clark who said she could come home with him, if she wanted. 

“The county fair’s coming up, it’s a good time to visit,” he offered. “You can stay at my parents’, they’ve got plenty of room and would love to have you.”

Clark looked genuine, but he always looked genuine. There was a small, but loud part of Lois’s mind that said this was a joke, he was kidding, and if she accepted, she’d look like an idiot when he sputtered (or worse, laughed in her face) and told her she was absolutely not invited to his parents house for a week. Were county fairs even a thing anymore?

“It’s not Paris or Disneyland,” he acknowledged, taking a cue off her skeptical expression. “But it’s also a shorter flight and not as expensive, so there’s that. Think about it, let me know.”

Lois did think about it and decided to call Clark’s bluff by saying yes, she’d love to go to Smallville, Kansas (a place she was not convinced actually existed). She then embarked on a game of chicken with him where they both kept raising the stakes. 

He submitted his vacation slip to the admin office and she submitted one for the same week (Wednesday to Wednesday) - both were approved. 

He claimed to have bought airline tickets and said his mom would pick them up and drive them out to the farm. She sent him her half of the fare through a cash app, which he accepted. That commitment to the bit impressed her - it was a pretty ballsy move to accept real money for a fake trip. 

He drew up a list of must-eat fair snacks and she agreed to try all of them, especially the ones she was pretty sure were fake (like fried butter). 

It was only on the night before they were supposed to fly out when Clark sent her a screenshot of her boarding pass with a text that read ‘See you in the morning!’ followed by a simile face and an airplane emoji that she realized they might actually be doing this.

Lois then began frantically searching up phrases like, “Smallville, Kansas” and “county fair.” Lo and behold, there was such a place! And there was also an upcoming county fair, which would be kicking off on Thursday. 

“Oh my God, I need to pack!” Lois exclaimed aloud into the silence of her empty apartment. It was around midnight (six hours before she needed to be at the airport) when she started spamming Clark’s phone with a flood of texts.

Do I have to wear overalls?

Thankfully, he responded within seconds.

No? Not unless you want to.

Will it look weird if I’m NOT wearing overalls?

No.

Will YOU be wearing overalls?

Probably not. 

Okay, that was a relief. Lois looked about ten years old when she attempted to make overalls work as fashion. 

The thing was, although she had lived in many different places over the course of her childhood, none of them had been particularly rural. As a result, her only reference points for anything resembling a farming community came from mid-century American television. And she was pretty sure, in everything from Green Acres to the Beverly Hillbillies, someone was constantly wearing overalls. If not overalls, then…

What about cowboy boots?

Not unless you’re planning on doing a lot of riding. Are you?

The last time she’d been on anything resembling a horse was at some classmate’s birthday party when she was seven It was a pony and it tried to bite her. So that was a big no. 

Do I need a cowboy HAT?

My parents own a grain farm, not a ranch. I’m not saying you will encounter zero cowboys on this trip, but you are not expected to become one.

That was slightly reassuring, but only slightly.

Will I have to ride a bull?

Again: Farm. Not ranch. We don’t own any cattle. There IS a mechanical bull at one of the bars nearby, you can ride that one if you want. 

Did she want to ride a bull, mechanical or otherwise? Lois wasn’t entirely sure, but she wanted to be prepared for the expectation that she would, in fact, ride any bull that was presented to her. 

Will I have to tip a cow?

That is Not A Thing. You know what is a thing? Needing to be up in five hours to make our flight. Night Lois!

There was one more thing she kind of needed to know before they departed - it was a little too late to cancel the trip over, but she wanted to be prepared.

Will I have to go to church?

This time, it took Clark a minute to reply. Three little dots appeared and disappeared in their text chain. Then, finally:

My family goes to meeting, not churchy-church. It’s only once a month and not happening when we’re there.

Even if there WAS meeting, you wouldn’t HAVE to go. No one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.

The point is to relax. I know you struggle with that, we’ll work on it. Starting with getting half a good night’s sleep 🙂

Lois rolled her eyes and tossed her phone aside. Then picked it back up immediately to look up what the weather in Kansas would be like during their trip - hot and sunny. She filled up her carry-on with shorts and t-shirts, threw a pair of sandals in along with a travel tube of sunscreen, zipped the whole thing shut, and went to bed without brushing her teeth. 

Or setting an alarm. At 6:15 something knocked into her window, jolting her awake. It must have been an extremely confused bird, but she was grateful for it as she jumped into the shower, ran a brush through her hair, brushed her teeth, and, finally, rubbed a little extra hand soap under her arms because she’d already packed her deodorant.

She made it to the gate with fifteen minutes to spare before boarding; Clark was waiting for her with a half-melted iced coffee in hand.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, accepting the coffee, trying to discreetly sniff her armpits to see how the hand soap was holding up. “Traffic.”

Clark took her lateness with good grace and Lois finally had to accept that they were really doing this, that Clark had been the one to call her bluff. She was actually meeting his parents, spending a week at his house, going to a country fair, and eating fried butter. 

What the hell had she gotten herself into?

Chapter Text

For someone who flew home regularly, the airport proved strangely challenging for Clark. He had to ask directions to the baggage claim and then walked them to the wrong passenger pick-up area, which resulted in him and Lois having to circle the airport parking lot with all their bags (and yes, by this point her hand soap deodorant had completely dissolved) while his mom drove around in circles looking for them. 

Lois could hear her yelling at Clark through the phone, “Just park it! I’ll find you!” She couldn’t imagine they went through this schtick every time he came home and asked if the airport had been under construction or something as they stood by in what was definitely not the designated pick-up area waiting for his mom to show up.

Clark stared at her blankly.

“Uh, no?” he replied uncertainly. “I don’t think so - want me to take your bags?”

“No, it’s fine,” Lois said, drawing her suitcase up beside her and balancing her carry-on duffel bag on top of the suitcase. Clark brought a single backpack, which seemed insane for a week away from home. Until she remembered that he was home and probably had clothes at his parents’ house while she was the visitor who’d overpacked.

It was bright outside and Lois started digging around in her carry-on looking for her sunglasses…which, in her bleary late-night frenzy, worrying about cows, she had not thought to include. Lois considered going back in and subjecting herself to the security line just so she could spend an exorbitant amount of money to buy a pair from the Sunglass Hut kiosk when a green Subaru Forester pulled up to the curb in front of them. 

Lois had speculated about what Clark’s parents might be like. Vaguely, she envisioned Auntie Em and Uncle Whateverhisnamewas from The Wizard of Oz (possibly because it was the only easily accessible point of reference that she had for Kansas). Granted, it was a bit of a stretch to imagine that his mother (who, after all, did own a cell phone) would pull up to the airport in a covered wagon wearing a bonnet, but in her defense, Clark unironically refered to his parents as ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’ so really, he was the one who planted that seed for her.

The only Oz-related thing about the car were all the rainbow bumper stickers, in various stages of fading and peeling, plastered over the Subaru’s hatchback. Needless to say, Mrs. Kent herself wasn’t exactly what Lois envisioned either. 

Rather than a hunched old lady with white hair and a bonnet, Mrs. Kent was taller than Lois, and wore cargo camo shorts, boots, a black t-shirt, and an oversized flannel button-down. She had long, thick auburn hair in a messy braid and giant square glasses (not unlike the style Clark preferred, only on her they looked artsy rather than just dorky). She had dark brown eyes and a face that was equal parts freckles and sun damage and her posture embodied the Platonic ideal of a middle aged woman with zero fucks to give. In short, she was deeply, effortlessly cool.   

“Hey, baby!” she exclaimed as she hurried around the car to give Clark a big hug. 

“Hey, Mama,” he replied with an easy smile as he bent down so she could reach his cheek and give him a kiss. “Ma, this is Lois, Lois, this is my mom, Martha.”

Lois raised her hand in awkward wave and plastered an even more awkward smile on her face. It had been years since she’d been introduced to anyone’s parent and so she fell back on old habits - namely, addressing Clark’s mother like she was once again twelve. “Hi, Mrs. Kent, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh, we’re Quaker, we don’t do all that,” Mrs. Kent replied, flapping her hands and waving off the honorific like she was shooing a fly. “Just Martha’s great - hug, handshake, or high-five?”

Lois just blinked at her until she realized that Mrs. Kent expected an answer. Clark was even trying to be helpful behind her, miming a hug, a handshake, and then actually giving himself a silent high-five. 

“Hug good,” Lois said, then remembering she wanted a Pulitzer one day, amended, “A hug. Is fine. Good! A hug is good! Would be good. Yeah.”

Mrs. Kent, to her credit, did not insist that Clark leave this broken automaton masquerading as a human woman on the sidewalk. She approached her, gave her a really solid hug and said, “I’m so glad to meet you, honey. How was your flight?” 

Apparently sincerity was genetic - Mrs. Kent had that same inherent warmth that Clark did and so, as they loaded bags into the car, Lois told her about it. Honestly. Specifically, that she had not been stuck in traffic that morning, but overslept and almost missed the flight until a bird flew into her window and woke her up.

Mrs. Kent snorted and gave Clark a wry look, “Well, thank God for the bird.”

“It probably has a concussion,” Lois reflected as she got into the back seat. Music started playing as soon as Mrs. Kent turned on the ignition.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Clark replied, getting into the passenger seat and sliding it back so that his knees weren’t completely squished against the dashboard.

“Y’all eat?” Mrs. Kent asked as she pulled back onto the road. Neko Case was briefly interrupted by the GPS guiding them away from the airport. “Want to stop for something before we head out?”

Clark turned around to look at Lois. Aside from plane snacks and her iced coffee she didn’t have anything else in her stomach, but she wanted to be a good guest and good guests didn’t ask for anything. The Kents were already housing her and feeding her for a week, she didn’t think between-meal snacks would be included in the deal.

“Oh, I’m okay,” she said, fiddling with the seatbelt and causing it to lock in place, half-strangling her. “I can wait until we get to your house.”

Mrs. Kent and Clark exchanged another look. 

“Um, it’s a three-hour drive,” Clark informed her. “We should probably get food.”

While Clark and his mom debated where they could get a decent breakfast, Lois sat in the back, stunned (though that might have been the seatbelt cutting off her airways). A two-hour flight, plus a three-hour drive? 

“You do this every weekend?” she asked Clark incredulously.

“Uh, I don’t come home every weekend,” he said, a little distractedly. “Mom - car!”

“The GPS told me to turn!”

“Yeah, if the road is clear! The pre-recorded voice of Rue McClanahan doesn’t know there’s a car coming!”

Stopping short well and truly lodged the seatbelt in Lois’s windpipe, but before she lost consciousness, she had a moment of despair. TV and Takeout was a Thursday night ritual and Lois usually idly asked Clark what he had planned for the weekend. 90% of the time, he said that he was going down to his parents’ house. She figured he flew out after work on Friday and then came back late Sunday, naturally concluding that they had to live pretty close to the airport for that to be worth it. 

Ten hours of travel every weekend was insane. And therefore probably not what he was doing.

Which was, you know, fine. Clark was allowed to have a social life that didn’t involve her and he was not obligated to tell her about the plans he had which didn’t involve her and the people he was hanging out with who she didn’t know. He didn’t have to lie though and be like, “Aw, shucks, I’m just hanging out on the farm, helping my parents not take care of cows because we don’t have any.” He could just say he was…playing Dungeons and Dragons or going to a barcade or polishing off his Mr. Spock ears for the Star Trek convention or whatever. It’s not like she’d be mad he wasn’t hanging out with her.

Oh, God, was she giving off needy vibes? That happened before, when she felt like she was connecting with someone and came on a little too strong…veering into clingy, bitchy jealousy sometimes, but that genuinely hadn’t happened in a while. At least since college. Because she hadn’t really vibed with anyone as well as she vibed with Clark since college.

Don’t fuck this up, Lane, she told herself, warningly. Be cool. Don’t be embarrassing. Try - for the first time in your life - to be a good friend and a chill person. 

The car stopped and Lois was finally able to unbuckle her seatbelt enough to give her brain the full amount of oxygen it required for basic life functions. 

“You okay?” Clark asked as she woozily stepped out of the car. “I can just get you a breakfast sandwich if you want to sleep.”

“I’m good,” Lois insisted. “I can get my own sandwich. I’m not a child. I'm not going to take a widdle nap-nap in the car.”

She meant for the words to sound playful, but they mostly came out mean. Clark noticed and hesitated as Lois rushed ahead to let herself into the little strip mall cafe where they stopped. She could get her own sandwich, open the door for herself, and certainly did not rely on her coworker Clark Kent for all of her social interaction. Miss Independent. Kelly Clarkson would be so proud.   

Or maybe she was hangry. After a second coffee and a turkey bacon egg and cheese, Lois suddenly felt a lot less paranoid and managed about an hour of polite conversation with Clark’s mom while her Best of Lilith Fair playlist wafted around them (apparently good taste in music was also genetic). Mrs. Kent taught art at the local high school and spent her summers working on her own projects, recently partnering up with the county historical society on an exhibition of quilts, which would have sounded super boring had anyone but Mrs. Kent been talking about the same subject.

“Wasn’t that your thesis?” Clark interjected. He’d opened the window and his hair was flying around his head. He kept trying to push it out of his eyes, unsuccessfully. “Like, ‘Stitches in Time, Women’s Stories through Needlework’?”  

“Okay, I did not call it ‘Stitches in Time,’” Mrs. Kent corrected him. “But…maybe, yeah. A little. I did my big capstone project on reconstructing women's history through fiber arts and pitched it to MaryEllen at the historical society as their big summer exhibit. Better than doing another Civil War diorama contest with the middle schoolers.”

“Don't tell me you’re tired of watching Ken surrender to G.I. Joe at Appomattox?” Clark chuckled. 

“It’s only funny the first dozen times,” Mrs. Kent rolled her eyes.

“You’ve never been so wrong,” Clark shook his head. “It’s funny every time.”

Three hours was a long way to drive. And Lois hadn’t slept much the night before. And Alanis Morissette had a very soothing voice. So, despite the two coffees she’d consumed, she fell asleep in the back seat of the car.

You know. Like a child. 

Lois woke up again as they bumped up and down along a dirt road. Mrs. Kent and Clark were mid-conversation, as they had been when she conked out. A distantly working part of her mind scoffed that they couldn't possibly have been talking for two hours. She saw her own dad maybe once a year and even then, they didn't have enough conversation between them to fill twenty minutes before lapsing into awkward silence.

“You don’t mind we’re having people over?” 

“No, that’s fine. Is Pa grilling?”

“Yep, we had some venison left in the deep freeze, he ground it down into burgers - does Lois eat red meat? I couldn’t remember, but we’ve got veggie burgers for Lana, so she’ll be okay either way.”

“She eats red meat, I don’t know if she’s ever had venison, but I’m sure she’ll be fine. Thanks for having her, by the way, I promise she’s a great conversationalist when she’s conscious.”

“Thanks for bringing her! I’m excited, those articles I've read of hers are fantastic and from what you’ve said she sounds like a hoot and a half.”

Lois wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about being described as a ‘hoot,’ but at least Clark was being complimentary and wasn’t anxiously whispering to his mother about how he thought they had a casual friendship going, but Lois was making it weird and he didn’t know how to get rid of her, so that was good. 

The anxious little voice in her head seemed oblivious of the fact that Clark was the one who invited her to Kansas and arranged this whole trip. It had also conveniently forgotten that, twenty-four hours ago, she didn’t even think this trip was happening. 

Lois was still groggy and didn’t sit up right away, letting the conversation wash over her, like a background podcast. Mrs. Kent had an Accent, Lois noticed that when she was yelling at Clark on speakerphone. Vaguely Lois remembered Clark telling her once that his mother was Southern, maybe from Tennessee? It was funny listening to Clark talk to her, while he had a little bit of a noticeable accent on the day to day, he was rapidly settling into an audibly detectible twang the longer he was in his home state. It was a little bit adorable.

“And thank you for coming to get us from the airport, that was a legitimately awful experience and I never want to do it again.”

“You owe me for that one, baby. Still, it was best I went, not your Daddy, he would have lost his goddamned mind in that traffic.”

"Oh yeah, we’d have had to break him out of jail.”

“You bet your ass we would, I don’t have bail money, do you?”

“Not after I bought plane tickets.”

“How bad were the seats?”

“Oh, fine, we sat in the emergency exit row, so I had leg room. I just had to promise to follow instructions if something crazy happened.” 

“Well, at least you’re the right guy to have around if something crazy happens.”

“Mmm.”

The car pulled to a stop and Lois fully woke up. The house in front of her was objectively cute, white with blue shutters and a porch, complete with rocking chairs and swing. There was an American flag out front, which she expected, and a Progress Pride flag, which she did not. 

Mrs. Kent went in ahead of them and said her husband was working, but would join them all for lunch. Clark started hauling the bags out of the trunk. 

Lois temporarily eschewed her recently-obtained title of Miss Independent and instead walked up to Clark, who was holding both her bags, in addition to his backpack and asked, “Are your parents gay?”

Clark paused, mid-haul, glancing at the flag as though seeing it for the first time. 

“Oh!” he said, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “Um. Gay specifically? No...ish? My dad’s trans and my mom doesn’t like labels. So we’re all just kinda…living in the visible light spectrum? Tasting the rainbow?”

Then he moved his arm in an arc, presumably meant to represent said rainbow and smiled at her like an absolute doofus. 

“Oh, cool,” Lois said, finally putting to bed all her previous assumptions about what Clark’s parents must be like, what his town must be like, and what farms were like as a whole. 

On that latter point, though, maybe she shouldn’t toss out all her reference points. Lois was pretty sure she’d never been somewhere so flat in her entire life, aside from the road they drove down to get to the house, field stretched out all around the property, the vista only interrupted by a huge barn, a series of other outbuildings that looked like Quonset huts, and a worrying number of vehicles for a house that only had two residents.

“Um. How many people are visiting?” Lois asked, looking out at the mishmash of cars and trucks and things that go. 

“Just us,” Clark replied, puzzled. Then his expression cleared and he said, “Oh, that’s…that’s mostly for parts. Something’s always broken. And if something’s not broken, the weather’s about to turn. How was your widdle nap-nap?”

He was smiling at her in a manner that might be called devilish, if it wasn't for the fact that his big stupid face had big stupid dimples that meant the word 'devil' could never be accurately used to describe Clark Kent.  

“Sooo good, definitely in my top five best naps of all-time, I was lulled to sleep by the safety specs of the Subaru,” Lois shot back and followed Clark and the bags up toward the house. 

It was just as cute inside as it was outside and twice as quirky. The staircase leading upstairs was embellished with yet more rainbow art. The rungs were painted in pastel hues representing, as Clark called it ‘the visible light spectrum,’ while the risers were painted to look like the sky, replete with fluffy clouds. 

“That is so cool!” Lois exclaimed when she saw the stairs. “Did your mom do that?”

“Yeah,” Clark nodded. “I, uh - it - she redid it when I was in high school. Woodwork and all. Just, ah, don’t look too close at the wall behind it.”

Of course, Lois immediately went to the wall behind it which contained a timeline of Clark’s childhood, starting with a baby picture of him in one of those bath towels with a hood and making its way through time all the way up to what looked like a high school graduation picture. In every photo but one he was grinning the same goofy smile he flashed her outside. The second-to-last photo, nearer the top of the stairs, was oddly serious. Clark’s jaw was clenched and his blue eyes looked right into the camera as though challenging the person looking at him to blink first. 

“Were you going for a mood?” she asked, jerking her head at the one picture that stood out from the rest. Clark followed her gesture and winced.

“Junior year was rough,” he replied with a helpless shrug. “I was kind of an asshole most of the time.”

Lois almost fell off the staircase; this was new. The swearing. Clark never swore in Metropolis, it was actually super noticeable in an office culture where four-letter words were as common as ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ (maybe more common, honestly). The worst she ever heard come out of his mouth, even when they were hanging out in her apartment was ‘crap.’

“Oh, really?” she asked with a crooked smile. “Did you…what, skip school once? Not help an old lady cross the street?”

“He was sullen,” Mrs. Kent reappeared, holding a salad spinner. “Stayed in his room, acted like he didn’t like us - teenager stuff. I wouldn’t go so far as to say you were an asshole, though.”

“Thanks, Ma,” Clark replied cheerfully, no trace of asshole at all in his demeanor. 

Mrs. Kent advised them to get settled and come down for lunch. Lois went up to the top of the landing so Clark could direct her to the room she’d be staying in. It was a pretty standard guest room with plaid curtains on the walls, a built-in closet with sliding doors that looked like they came right out of the 70s, a wooden dresser with an antique mirror on top, and a bed frame with posters that had been carved to resemble acorns

“Did your mom make all this stuff too?” Lois asked, deeply impressed.

“Nah,” Clark shook his head. “This is just…family stuff, heirlooms, I guess. Farm’s been in the family for a hundred and fifty years. My dad inherited it from his grandfather. Big fuss at the reading of the will, so I heard. But Grandpa Kent said Pa was the only one he trusted not to sell it. He was right.”

Clark set her bags by the bed and cocked his head down at her.

“What do you think?” he asked, peering at her closely behind his glasses. Unlike the picture in the hallway, the expression on his face was all gentle concern, the look in his eyes comforting, not piercingly direct. “This all okay?”

There was a view of a tree outside the window - a huge oak, probably as old as the farm itself. With the sun shining through the leaves, dappling the quilt on the bed with golden light, she felt some of the tension draining out of her shoulders, the concerns that she was too much, too clingy, too annoying, gone like they’d never been. 

Lois remembered Clark’s text. The point is to relax. Well, so far so good. It even seemed to be working on Clark; at the Planet he walked a little slumped, like he was consciously trying not to bump into things. Here, in a place he knew so well, he seemed to take up more space, but his shoulders were down, like he was…fully inhabiting his body or something woo-woo like that. It was nice. Different, like the twang and the swearing. But nice.

“More than okay, this is great,” Lois said and meant it. “Your mom is great. Your house is great. I’m sure your dad is great. Thank you for inviting me.”

The last part of her statement came out a little too…something, for Lois’s taste. Sincere, maybe, verging on vulnerable. It made Clark’s expression grow soft and fond, like she was a…puppy with a limp or something. She didn’t love that. 

So, she clapped her hands and asked, with a renewal of some of her previous nervous energy, “What’s for lunch?”

Chapter Text

Clark left for a bit so Lois could settle in (read: dig down to the bottom of her suitcase for her deodorant). She changed her shirt for good measure and ran a brush through her hair, which was pretty matted after her impromptu car nap. She also did a teensy bit of investigating which, were she not a professional journalist, might be termed snooping. 

The guest room was fairly spartan, there was nothing hanging in the closet apart from a few winter coats and some board games piled up on a shoe rack. The drawers of the dresser were completely empty. 

One thing that freaked Lois out a tiny bit was the fact that there was only one full bathroom upstairs. It made sense, the house was old and probably didn’t have indoor plumbing when it was originally constructed. Nevertheless, she had a horrifying vision of herself trying to pee while a short line formed outside, each second ticking by in agony, the knowledge that people were waiting on her prompting her full bladder to close up shop. She was so unnerved that she totally forgot to look through their medicine cabinet. 

The sound of joyful barking interrupted her panic spiral and when Lois walked downstairs she was struck by two equally important realizations: The Kents had two very fluffy dogs and Clark was wearing a t-shirt. 

Clark was crouched down, trying to give equal attention to both dogs who were jumping and pawing at him as though they had never known a kind word or loving touch before. Lois would have been tempted to leap straight into the middle of the puppy pile except for one thing that froze her solid on the rainbow staircase: The T-Shirt. 

Like Lois, Clark had changed from the joggers and sweatshirt he wore on the plane into a t-shirt and jeans. Only, Lois would classify the garment on the upper half of her torso as a t-shirt. Unremarkable. Lower case. Nothing revelatory. What Clark was wearing which could only be properly described as: THE T-SHIRT. All-caps.

Like Elizabeth Bennet ogling a soaking wet Mr. Darcy, Lois was both surprised and… pleasantly surprised. Ahem. 

Of course, not being a 19th century maiden, it’s not like she was scandalized or anything - Clark was wearing jeans after all and not flashing bare ankle, that would have been way too much. Jokes aside, every time Lois saw him Clark was either wearing a work shirt and a quarter-zip, or a hoodie. Given the fact that he was thicc and had awful posture, she had the impression that he had a little bit of a gut - which was cool and valid, all bodies that happened to be located on a beach were beach bodies, etc. 

Only THE T-SHIRT made it extremely clear that she was mistaken. The shirt, though not sodden, was definitely fitted and just so happened to be particularly snug against his pecs and abs. He was less like a washboard and more like a brick wall, but still. Revelatory. 

And that wasn’t even touching on the subject of his arms, which were…um. Just a lot of biceps. Okay, well, two biceps, which was an ordinary number of biceps to have, with one on each arm, which was a normal place to have them, but the size was abnormal. Not abnormal, just…really big. Beefy. More than she was expecting, both in terms of size and muscle definition. To be succinct about it. 

One of the dogs, sensing that there was someone else who might love them, suddenly darted up the stairs, tail wagging furiously. It pounced on her so enthusiastically that Lois fell directly on her ass. The dog took advantage of her newly available lap and jumped on her. This was actually a good thing, distracting her, before Clark himself caught Lois staring at him with a longing look on her face normally only worn by Dickensian orphan children staring through bakery windows.

“Callie, no!” Clark called out, fruitlessly, since Lois was only reinforcing this bad behavior by scratching the dog - Callie, apparently - behind her furry ears. She was a very cute little collie and Lois was grateful that she was the one who accosted her. The other dog appeared to be a Newfoundland and might have knocked her clear through the stairs.

“Callie, yes! ” Lois retorted, earning a lick on the face for her encouragement. “She’s my new best friend.”

The look of concern on Clark’s face dropped away as he grinned in relief.

"Oh, good,” he said. “I should have asked if you liked dogs, but I sort of figured it was fine since you kept asking me about bull riding and they’re way bigger.”

“I mean, that guy looks big enough to ride,” Lois said, nodding toward the enormous ball of fluff, which Clark somehow managed to heft up into his arms and cradle like a newborn.

“Otis?” he asked in a tone of mock outrage. “No way, he’s just a little baby.”

The dogs, in combination with THE T-SHIRT, might have shifted the plot of the day into something befitting a $4.99 Harlequin paperback, until Clark destroyed the mood by letting Otis lick him directly on the mouth while making kissing noises at him. Something about watching a guy essentially make out with a dog was distinctly gross and immediately knocked the scene from an 11 to a 5 on the, ‘Holy Shit, That’s Hot’ scale.  

“Clark, put the dog down.”

A new voice entered the chat, but Lois could not see the body it was attached to since they were standing behind Clark, who, combined with Otis, blocked them completely. Clark turned around and addressed the unseen person, protesting that he couldn’t possibly put the dog down because Otis was, after all, just a baby. 

"You have to support the head," Clark said, all innocent indignation.

“If you hold him like that, he wants us to hold him like that,” the voice continued, with a long-suffering air that implied this was not the first time they’d had this conversation. “And that ain’t happening.”

Begrudgingly, Clark set the dog on his feet, kneeling down to give Otis profuse apologies and many, many belly rubs. Once Clark moved, Lois was able to put a face to the voice.

Holy shit, his dad is the Marlboro Man.

Where the visual comparison came from, Lois had no idea. When she was coming of age, cigarettes were out and vaping was in, so the fact that she not only had an impression of what the old advertisement looked like, but thought that Clark’s dad resembled him was unexpected. 

Still, the comparison was apt. Mr. Kent was rugged and rangy, wearing denim-on-denim. He had sandy-blonde hair which hid whatever grey might be springing up. His face was more weather-beaten than his wife’s, with crow’s feet around his hazel eyes and frown lines on either side of his mouth. Had the Surgeon General’s warning not been mandatorily posted on the sides of the carton, that face alone might have prompted Lois to take up smoking. 

The lines around his eyes deepened when Mr. Kent smiled at Lois and stepped around Clark and the dog to walk half-way up the stairs to extend a hand for her to shake. His knuckles were bony and his hands were very dry and rough. The impression that he gave was less ‘Oh, Mr. Darcy!’ from P&P and more, ‘Maybe that old guy is kind of hot,’ from Little Women , but yeah. Clark’s dad could Get It.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Kent,” Lois said, once again retreating into her default middle schooler mode.

“Jonathan’s fine,” he said, releasing her hand and urging the dog off her. “We’re happy to have you - you hungry?”

It had been a while since the breakfast sandwich and Lois was feeling a little peckish, so she nodded and followed Clark and his dad and the dogs into the kitchen. Lunch was not quite as revelatory as THE T-SHIRT, but she still had her mind blown. Mrs. Kent prepared chopped Caesar salads with fried chicken chunks, but it was like no salad Lois had ever had. Even the lettuce tasted good and she’d never known lettuce to have a flavor other than ‘crunchy water’ before.

While she ate, she observed and found herself both flummoxed and interested in the Kent family dynamic, which was very different from the Lane family dynamic. A lot more joking and smiles, a lot less passive-aggressive resentment. Granted, she’d only been around them for a handful of hours, it was possible they were putting on a show for the sake of their guest. 

They seemed to genuinely like each other. Which was not outside the realm of possibility. Lois assumed, given the law of averages, that there were some families who got along with each other. Hypothetically. She’d just never seen it until now. 

It was possible living in Metropolis skewed her perspective; most people who came there from Nowhereburgs, like Smallville, tended to want to shed their small town associations as quickly as possible. 

The Kents made every effort to involve Lois in their conversation, going on tangents about people in town or issues around the farm, so that she had appropriate context when something was funny or to give her an opening to express an opinion. They let her know that they’d be having additional guests for dinner - their closest neighbors, Lana Lang and her Aunt Ruth. 

Lois figured this was the ‘my friend Lana,’ Clark sometimes referenced (and he always said it like that, like My Friend Lana was her government name). She mostly nodded along and ate her salad, trying to live up to the promise she made herself to be chill and cool and not embarrassing. She couldn’t embarrass herself if didn’t talk. 

“Need any help?” Clark asked his dad as he brought the dishes to the sink before heading for the door. 

“Nah,” Mr. Kent shook his head. “Show Lois around the property, relax, give me a hand in the morning. See you later, Lois.”

“See you,” she echoed. 

“Want me to do the dishes?” Clark asked his mom, but she waved him off.

“Not just now - go on, show Lois around,” his mother insisted. “I’m not making her wait while we do dishes, she’ll never come back and visit again.”

Mrs. Kent winked and there was a split second - like, blink and you miss it brief - where Clark drummed his fingers on the kitchen table and looked actively put out that he was being denied the opportunity to do chores. Lois cringed internally - maybe she was doing a bad job being chill, maybe she hadn’t laughed hard enough at the anecdote about Mrs. Winston from the fabric store and because of that, Clark would rather ride around on a tractor or wash dishes than continue to spend time with her. But the expression vanished as quick as it appeared and Clark took her outside, closely followed by the dogs.

“Are you bored?” he asked as they walked around the back side of the house, looking distinctly worried. “You were quiet during lunch - is this the most boring place you’ve ever been?”

“What?” Lois asked, startled. “No! This is definitely not the most boring place I’ve ever been! You’ve got a rainbow staircase in your house, my dad’s military, they think it’s an ordeal trying to choose between gunmetal grey and slate grey when they paint a wall.”

“But you are bored,” Clark concluded, fisting his fingers in his hair and throwing his head back to groan at the sky. “I’m sorry! I promised relaxation and boredom is not relaxing. Lana’s fun! I promise it’ll be better when Lana gets here - ”

Huh. All the while she was so worried about making a good impression, she had no idea Clark might be trying to do the same thing. 

“I’m not bored!” Lois insisted, grabbing Clark’s elbow and trying to yank his hand out of his hair. Everyone was allowed to be insecure, she supposed, even extremely charming Genuinely Nice Guys who wore mind-bending t-shirts. Sorry, T-SHIRTS. “I’m just trying not to…be weird and make your parents hate me.”

Shit. Did I say that out loud?

Clark lowered his arms and cocked his head down at her in confusion. “What?”

Distraction. Distraction…distraction!

“Oh, hey!” she darted away from him and toward a tire swing hanging from the giant oak tree she’d seen from the bedroom window. “Will that break if I sit on it?”

“It doesn’t break when I sit on it,” Clark said, following after her. “You’re good.”

Lois hopped up onto the swing, giving herself a little push off with her toes. Clark leaned up against the tree while Otis and Callie chased each other around the yard. It was pretty idyllic and for a few seconds all was peaceful and quiet. Very nearly relaxing. Until Lois decided to one-up the last awkward thing she said by saying something even more awkward.

“So, you’re adopted.”

Clark snapped his head up so hard it looked like he gave himself whiplash. His eyes went HUGE behind his glasses and he brought a hand up to his mouth in shock.

“I’m adopted?” he gasped. His chin actually wibbled.

Lois froze. Then she narrowed her eyes and took a swipe at his leg with her foot. “You are such a dick.”

“I almost had you!” Clark laughed and Lois tried to use her momentum to swing into him. He dodged her pretty easily. “Yes, to absolutely no one’s surprise, I am, in fact, adopted. What tipped you off? Was that it the fact that I look nothing like either of my parents?”

It was funny that he said that; even though the Kents didn’t physically resemble each other, they gave off a similar energy (there she went again with the woo-woo stuff, she needed to stop watching Instagram reels that Cat sent her). Although, the adoption thing might have explained the family dynamic, at least partially. 

Among the Lanes, there was a lot of, ‘Why can’t you make all the same choices in your life that I made in my life?’ ‘Why aren’t you living up to your potential the exact way that I’m living up to my potential?’ ‘Why can’t you just be more like me?’  

And hey, it wasn’t just coming from one direction. There was a reason she and Lucy weren’t exactly chums. Maybe if you didn’t share DNA with someone, there was less expectation that they owed you anything on the atomic level.

But rather than focusing on her personal issues, she decided to focus on Clark’s instead.

“When did they tell you?” she asked curiously. “Or do you not remember?”

“They didn’t tell me,” he said. Then, realizing how that sounded, amended his words. “I mean, I don’t remember ever not knowing. It was just a fact, like, sky’s blue, water’s wet, Clark’s adopted.”

He shrugged and smiled at her like it wasn’t a big deal and he didn’t have any emotional baggage at all and either Clark Kent was the most well-adjusted person she’d ever met or he was really good at masking.

Clark took hold of the chain that attached the tire swing to the tree and gave Lois a little push. 

“You’re sure you’re not bored?” he asked her again, his tone slightly more serious, his eyes a little…sad, maybe. Possibly not as good at masking as he thought, but then, neither was she.

“I’m not bored,” she said, honestly. “I’m not exactly relaxed, but we basically just got here. Lunch was so good, though, so if nothing else, I am actively stoked for dinner.”

Clark laughed and Lois thought, just in the privacy of her own mind (because saying it aloud would definitely make things Weird), that as long as he stood that close to her in THE T-SHIRT, she wouldn’t be bored for a single second on this trip.

“Are you ever bored?” she asked, looking up at him critically. “Out here? I mean, you could have…stayed, right? If you wanted, you could be the next farm heir.”

“Oof,” Clark winced and walked a few steps away. “I thought we were…bonding or something, but here comes Ms. Lane with the hard-hitting questions.”

He didn’t seem mad, though, just thoughtful. Clark looked around, taking in the car graveyard, the huts, the fields, the house, and the barn. The light from the midday sun reflected off his glasses, obscuring his eyes so it was hard to tell what he was thinking.

“I really love it here,” he said and sounded utterly sincere. “I just…”

He put his hands in his pockets and tilted his head back up at the sky. 

“World’s a lot bigger than Smallville, Kansas,” he said at last. “And I think if I stayed here, I’d…disengage from it all. In a way I don’t think it’s fair for me to disengage. Not to say that Smallville doesn’t have problems, it does, but…”

Clark turned back to look at Lois and sighed. The glimmer of frustration she thought she noticed earlier at the kitchen table was there again, much closer to the surface. 

“I just want to do some good, the most good I can,” he concluded. “I can do more outside of Smallville than in. That make sense?”

Lois nodded. It did make sense. Clark was a talented journalist, frankly, she thought it would be a waste if he decided to hunker down and write op-eds for The Smallville Chronicle or whatever the local paper was. 

“And if you stayed here, you never would have met me,” Lois pointed out, grinning up at him big and cheesy. 

Clark smiled back, “See, that would’ve been a real tragedy. Want to walk around?”

She agreed and Clark led her on a little tour of the property, showed her the cars, the barn, an old treehouse, (one he did not trust to hold as much weight as the tire swing), and the little greenhouse where the lettuce from their salads came from. 

“Oh, that’s why it was so transcendent,” Lois realized. “It was made with love.”

“The ultimate secret sauce,” Clark agreed. “Seriously, the first time I had a tomato from a Metropolis grocery store, I almost cried. It tasted like nothing.”

“Well, yeah,” Lois agreed. “If you were just eating a plain tomato.”

“It’s one of my favorite snacks,” Clark told her. “Tomato. Salt. That’s it.”

She waited a sec to see if he would break like he did when he pretended he didn’t know he was adopted, but this time he seemed totally serious.

“That’s not a snack,” Lois shook her head. “That’s an ingredient.”

“You only say that because you’ve never had a homegrown tomato,” he insisted. He walked away from her, purposefully, then returned a minute later with a big, lopsided purplish-red tomato in the palm of his hand, like he was the cover image for a farm version of Twilight. “Go on, take a bite.”

Lois was never not willing to rise to a challenge or take a dare. In fact, at one of the high schools she went to, they hired a hypnotist to jazz up the pep rally before homecoming. Knowing she wasn’t going to stay long enough to make much of an impression on her classmates, she volunteered to be hypnotized. The guy handed her an onion to bite into, insisting that it would taste just like a juicy red apple. 

She did it. It tasted exactly like biting into an onion. Lois didn’t gag, more because she wanted to inspire awe rather than not wanting to embarrass the guy. Compared to that experience, biting the tomato couldn’t be that bad. 

She took the tomato from Clark and sank her teeth into it. It tasted fucking amazing. 

Chapter Text

Dinner preparation was underway when My Friend Lana entered the picture. 

The Langs lived close enough to walk, so there was no hum of a car engine to alert anyone to her coming. Instead, a guttural cry, like that of a Valkyrie of yore, was the only warning any of them had before they were attacked.

“Ahhhhhhh!” A redheaded blur ran down the driveway and took a flying leap at Clark, who caught the blur, which proceeded to wrap its legs around his waist and grab him in a chokehold of a hug so fierce she knocked his glasses clean off his face.

“Jesus Christ, Lana!” Clark exclaimed, simultaneously pulling away and covering his eyes with one hand, using the other to keep Lana up.

Lois had seen Clark without his glasses precious few times, but each time he squinted really intensely and looked panicked, so she assumed his eyesight was complete trash. Endeavoring to be helpful, Lois picked up Clark’s glasses from where they’d fallen in the grass before he could inevitably step on them and break them like the heroine of a Scooby-Do cartoon. 

“Here you go, Velma,” she said, offering them back to him.

“Jinkies,” he muttered in thanks, holding his hand out for Lois to place his glasses in his palm. 

While Clark replaced his glasses, Lana used him as a kind of springboard to jump onto the ground in front of Lois, who braced herself, though Lana just gave her a fairly normal hug, before pulling back and grinning at her hugely.

Lana was - and Lois did not use this word lightly - stunning. She looked like a Barbie, she had glossy red hair, vibrantly green eyes, peaches and cream skin, and the longest legs Lois had ever seen. Her winged eyeliner was so perfect it looked like it could, as Taylor Swift once crooned, kill a man. She was wearing denim shorts and a funky crochet top made out of granny squares, like she was ready to complete her Final Girl Circuit in a 70s horror movie.

She was also wearing - and here Lois shot Clark an accusatory glare that he probably couldn’t see - cowboy boots. Teal cowboy boots.

As closely as Lois was studying Lana, Lana was also looking at Lois with an intensity that art critics reserved for newly unearth masterworks and not people they were meeting for the first time thorugh a mutual friend. She didn’t seem too happy either; as her eyes locked on Lois’s face, her mouth dropped open and she yelled at Clark, seemingly outraged.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing Liz Taylor home!” she said. Then, turning back to Lois, added, “An icon! An idol! OhmyGod, your eyes are so beautiful! I’m sure you get that all the time.” 

Lois did not, actually, get that all the time. She instantly flattered, but also wary of accepting flattery from someone so objectively hot. Kind of like Clark with the invitation to Kansas, she thought Lana might be kidding, ready to pull the compliment rug out from underneath her if Lois agreed that, yes, she had beautiful eyes.

“I’m Lana,” she continued, before Lois could either accept or reject the compliment. “I’m so happy to meet you, Lois, Clark told me so much about you, I'm obsessed. What’s your Insta?”

It was wild, but after ten hours in Smallville, aside from listening to the GPS in the car, Lois hadn’t engaged with any technology. She hadn’t even gotten around to asking Clark the WiFi password, which was utterly unlike her. It was almost jarring when Lana whipped her cell phone out of her pocket and looked at her with eager anticipation.

“Oh, uh…” Lois’s gaze flickered over to the house, where her phone lay forlornly in the guest room. “TorchyLane, it’s - ”

“Like Torchy Blane?” Lana interrupted her, without looking up, fingers rapidly typing. “Ugh, another icon, I love it. Perfect! I just sent you a friend request, no rush. What’ve y’all been up to? Have you seen the town yet?” 

When Clark was pitching Smallville as a potential vacation spot, he mentioned that they’d be travelling outside tornado season, like that was a perk. What Lois had not accounted for was experiencing a human tornado in the form of a latter-day Brigitte Bardot. Although she’d abandoned her original assumptions about Smallville, she was starting to make some new ones: namely, that everyone else would be as chill and lowkey as the Kents. Turned out that people who came from the same small town could have wildly different personalities. Who knew?

“Not yet,” Lois replied, a little unnerved by the sheer amount of energy Lana was exuding. The phrase 'Clark told me so much about you,' stuck out. Had he told Lois much about Lana? At the moment she couldn't recall, but he definitely hadn't said, 'By the way, My Friend Lana is a glamazon of epic proportions, with truly impeccable fashion sense and you need to work on your eyeliner game before you meet her. Also she talks a mile a minute and is loud as fuck, maybe wear earplugs,' Lois would have remembered that, surely. 

“We went through town on the way back from the airport,” Clark said, glasses back on his face, a devious twinkle in his eye. “Lois didn’t see it though, she passed out as soon as we got in the car.

“You are such a liar!” Lois exclaimed at the same time that Lana said, “Girl, same, I can’t sleep on planes either.”

Lana continued, in a conspiratorial tone, “I have this theory that I am a tremendously powerful psychic and the only reason the plane stays in the air is because I am awake and I really need the plane to stay up until it’s time to land so that I don’t die. My evidence supporting my phenomenal cosmic power is that none of the flights I’ve been on have crashed and I was awake for all of them.”

She smiled in an extremely satisfied way - were her eyes twinkling? The charisma was seriously off the charts and Lois felt herself tugged in by the sheer gravitational force of the ManicPixieDreamgirlness of it all, even though she didn't like Garden State. Or 500 Days of Summer. Or Almost Famous. (Yes, she'd seen all of them.)

“That sounds like a super sound scientific theory to me,” Lois offered, tentatively thinking that she might like Lana. Emphasis on might - although Lois was susceptible to charm, she was also cynical enough to know that an aggressively cheerful disposition might just be a cover. Given how adorably put-together she was, how effortlessly friendly, there was every possibility that, underneath Lana’s polished exterior, lurked the soul of a Grade-A bitch. Further study was definitely required.

“Thank you so much,” Lana said with a formal inclination of her head, one hand going to her heart. “I worked really hard on it and I’m going to present it to the FAA next month.”

“Question!” Clark raised his hand like he was in elementary school. “How do you account for the fact that our plane stayed in the air and landed when it was supposed to when you weren’t on our flight?”

“Easy,” Lana replied. “Clearly there was another psychic among you. Maybe it was Lois!”

“Maybe,” Lois agreed with a careless shrug, smirking at Clark. 

He looked between the two of them, a frown line appearing between his eyes.

“I figured you two would get on,” he said finally. “I didn’t think you’d gang up on me.”

“A lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part,” Lana said airily. “Oh, speaking of,  Aunt Ruth isn’t coming, I need to apologize to your parents for her. There was some emergency at the fellowship hall - not a real emergency!”

Lana lunged at Clark again, but she didn’t jump on him, just grabbed his arm as though attempting to anchor him to the ground. She appeared totally unaffected by THE T-SHIRT, but she had known Clark longer and had probably seen him thus attired before, so maybe the impact lessened over time. 

“They’re doing baby dedications this weekend,” she explained, leaning her chin up against Clark’s arm and making a point of looking into his eyes, like it was really important that he listen to and believe her. “Ruth needs to make sure there’s gift baskets or something, enough bitty Bibles to go around, I'll be honest, I wasn’t listening.” 

“Okay, okay, message received,” Clark said, but he didn’t shake Lana off and she didn’t let go of his arm. They just looked at each other and Lois had the sudden, unpleasant feeling that she was a third wheel in…whatever this was. 

Just as suddenly, she decided that, actually, she didn’t like Lana all that much. No more investigation required. 

“I’m going to run inside,” Lois said, assuming that the two of them were too locked into their Moment to notice her leaving.

Clark immediately broke eye contact and asked what she needed. Lois explained that she should charge her phone (which was true) and that she’d be back down in a minute (probably not true). 

“Does Lois like classic films generally?” she heard Lana asking Clark as she went into the house. “If she’s just a Glenda Farrell fangirl, that’s a-okay, I can work with that. I’m just desperate for someone to talk to about mid-century musicals, I need to justify my TCM subscription, do you think she’d be my movie buddy…”

Lois marched into the house at a quick clip. Her phone was still charged to 40% and…no one had texted her. Or emailed; apparently payroll put the fear of God into Perry and she hadn’t even received any copy to quickly proofread. Everything in her inbox was spam or junk. There was one friend request notification in her Instagram app from LanasLavenderCloset.

She decided to research first and sat down on the edge of the bed to scroll Lana’s Instagram, eating into her data plan as she did so. As was typical, Social Media!Lana was even more polished and pristine than IRL!Lana. All her posts were pictures of herself looking impossibly gorgeous in beautiful surroundings which ranged from piers at sunset, to amusement parks, to rooftop bars. She was full glam in most shots, styled like a pin-up model. Every photo Lois clicked on had endless likes and line after line of complimentary comments, each compliment itself dotted with endless heart-eye emojis.

By contrast, Lois hadn’t posted anything to her TorchyLane account since she took a photo of the Planet building’s art deco lobby more than a year ago. She mostly used her Instagram to stalk the socials of people and institutions she was investigating and, occasionally, to like pictures that Lucy posted of her kids. 

Lana’s latest story from the morning included a photo of her sitting atop a piece of old-fashioned hard luggage, legs crossed to show off her cowboy boots. Over the top of the image, John Denver could be heard singing, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

Now, Lois wasn’t naive. She knew that social media was basically a scam, that people curated an image of themselves not as they were, but as they’d like to be perceived, yadda, yadda, yadda. Still, she was only human. What photos would she have taken of her travels if she’d thought it was necessary to post the minutiae of her life? A shot of her watery iced coffee on the airplane tray table? A picture of herself passed out and drooling on the seatbelt in the back of Mrs. Kent’s car?

Under more festive circumstances, it wouldn’t occur to her to post a hi-res image of an espresso martini or a selfie at a concert venue. Let alone to artfully pose perched on top of a suitcase and add a soundtrack.

Of course, contemplating these hypothetical scenarios, where she was enjoying herself in suitably aesthetic surroundings, only made her realize how infrequently she was out on the town. Contemplating chronicling her life for the ‘gram, Lois envisioned a series of pictures of her desk at work, her couch and TV, and a series of bus stops on Metropolis’s transit system. When was the last time she had an espresso martini?

Although she knew social media was an empire built on lies and the algorithm was designed to make her feel bad for herself and sell her things, Lois felt, in that moment, like the biggest loser on planet earth. 

Lois flopped backwards on the bed and groaned. The murmur of voices caught her ear through the open window and, as she had in the car, she briefly just let them wash over her - until she realized it was Lana and Clark talking and she rolled closer to the window to hear them better. 

Why was she doing this when she decided that not only was Lana a superficial egotist who she did not like and whose opinion she did not care about, but was simultaneously better than her in a very shallow sense of the word 'better'? Hard to say. Lois had made up her mind about Lana, but still wanted to know more...namely what her appeal was to Clark. Why he would assume the two of them would get along, why he would describe Lana as 'fun,' why he was friends with her in the first place. Clark posted more on Instagram than Lois did, but it was mostly a portfolio for landscape photography, not a catalogue of his daily activities. He didn't even have his face as his profile pic, just a very cool snapshot of the iconic kinetic sculpture at the top of the Planet building, presumably taken from the roof of the building across the street. Lois would bet that Clark hadn't had an espresso martini in a while either.

She could only get half the conversation; Lana’s voice was higher and clearer, Clark’s was more of a low rumble and harder to understand when one was eavesdropping from the second floor of a house.

“Are you on a real break this week?” Lois heard Lana asking Clark. Clark started to reply, Lois caught the words ‘office’ and ‘vacation,’ but Lana interrupted him mid-sentence. Some of her bubbly energy had popped and she sounded oddly serious.

“Not just from your job, from everything?”

Another murmured response, then, from Lana, “Sure, but those workers in Chicago didn’t strike for an eight-hour work day for nothing, you know - ”

Then it was Clark’s turn to interrupt. Again, all Lois could make out was Lana’s scoffing reply.

“Oh, yeah right, when’s the last time you got eight hours of sleep?”

Clark’s reply was very brief. Lana paused a little bit before she answered.

“There are things that you don’t need, but are nice to have. I’m not saying you have to spend every single second with me, but I guess I just want some…reassurance? That we’re not going to be in the middle of a good time and you’re just going to take off.”

This time, Lois heard Clark’s response clearly.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that," he said, voice rising in pitch, coinciding with an uptick in frustration. "I don’t plan on taking off, if that’s what you mean. But I never plan on taking off.”

Now Lana’s voice was the one that was harder to make out; it was softer, sadder. 

“I know, I know. I just worry about you.”

A knock on the doorframe made Lois shoot upright. A second later, Mrs. Kent’s face appeared in the doorway and Lois had a teensy, weensy heart attack, thinking she’d been caught. Why the hell hadn't she locked the door when she was defying the boundaries of ordinary human courtesy by blatantly listening in to other people's private conversations? Then again, in their modern world of CCTV and voice-activated virtual assistants, could anyone really expect privacy anymore? So wasn't it Clark and Lana's fault that they were talking out loud? If they really didn't want to be overheard, then they should have passed notes written in blackberry juice on edible paper and consumed the evidence that they had a conversation at all. Not that Mrs. Kent would necessarily be sympathetic to Lois's rationale; she was clearly a daughter of the 1900s and likely carried outdated notions from the 20th century into the 21st.

She couldn’t hear them, Lois rationalized to herself. You could barely hear them, she has no idea you were snooping on her son and his…maybe girlfriend’s conversation.

Indeed, it seemed Mrs. Kent was oblivious, she just told Lois that food would be ready soon and to come on down in a minute. Lois made noises which she hoped conveyed the sentiment of, ‘Thanks, be right down.’ Then she sat and stewed.

Was Lana Clark’s girlfriend? First of all, bizarre that he would think they were the kind of friends where he would feel comfortable inviting her to cross state lines and spend a week at his parents’ together and not feel like they were close enough that he could tell her about his girlfriend. Granted, she had no context for the conversation she’d overheard (and hadn’t gotten most of Clark’s side of it), but it seemed like couple-adjacent anxiety. Clark wasn’t making time for Lana the way she wanted him to, he felt like she was smothering him, tale as old as time. 

Oof, but there was also an unpleasant alternative: they weren’t actually a couple (which was maybe why Clark was so insistent that she was My Friend Lana), but Lana desperately wanted to be. And maybe she thought Lois was some kind of Female Rival and they were going to have to…duel over him or something. Like Betty and Veronica (no, she’d never read Archie comics and had no idea if the girls drew blood over who ultimately got to possess the titular character, but it seemed probable). Maybe the reason why she was so eager to connect with Lois over socials was because she planned to dig back into her internet history, looking for something to cancel her over. 

Well, the joke was on her if that was her master plan, because not only did Lois have an incredibly boring personal internet presence (her professional internet presence was fire, thank you very much), she was also not interested in going to the mattresses over Clark Kent, of all people. Okay, that was kind of unfair to Clark; Lois wouldn’t get involved in a love triangle over anyone ever, not even if he was The Best Guy on Planet Earth.

If Superman (random example) was like, “Well, female citizens, I bear equal affection for both of you, but you must prove yourselves worthy of me, preferably by being catty,” Lois would NOPE out of that situation before he got to the end of his Super Speech. Any dude who couldn’t make up his mind about who he wanted to be in a monogamous relationship with was probably not ready for a monogamous relationship. And any guy who got hot thinking about girls competing for his affection was not The Best Guy on Planet Earth, but a Depressingly Below Average Guy on Planet Earth Who Needed to Take His Validation-Seeking Tendencies Elsewhere. 

So, two options: Clark and Lana were a thing and he just hadn’t made that clear to Lois for some random reason, or, Clark and Lana were NOT a thing, but Lana was trying to play mind games. 

Lois Lane never backed down from a challenge. She could out-maneuver anyone who thought they could get one over on her, and she was just petty enough to derive unsportsmanlike satisfaction from watching her enemies tie themselves in knots trying to out-play, out-last, and out-wit her (Lois would absolutely crush on Survivor if she didn’t have a thing about not eating or sleeping for a month). 

Innervated at the idea of Winning, Lois accepted Lana’s friend request, sent one of her own, and went down to supper with a spring in her step. Let her try to find cancellable material. Let her try to find anything except the most bland pictures of her place of work and family photos that were at least five years out of date. Lana Lang could do her worst to concoct a rivalry and Lois would take pleasure in watching her plans all crumble to dust.

And if she could do so while enjoying fresh grilled burgers, corn on the cob, and homemade lemonade? So much the better.

Chapter Text

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Lois killed it at dinner. Now that she was more concerned with Winning than winning over, she was able to hit her stride, open up and start acting less like The Perfect Houseguest and more like Lois Lane, Ace Reporter. No more did she passively listen to stories while smiling and nodding, now she told stories and asked questions, bringing her A-game, being the wittiest, funniest, best version of herself. 

It was less a conversation and more of a tennis match where Lois was determined not to drop the ball. She discovered that she and Lana had some areas of mutual interest - namely old movies - and she agreed that, yes, they absolutely should binge watch the best TCM had to offer while they were both in town. Lana upped the ante and floated the idea of starting a podcast together, which Lois enthusiastically agreed to. She even gave her a hug when they parted.

At no time did Lois reflect, while she was focused on decimating Lana’s scheme to start a rivalry, that she was bringing the same mindset to dinner that she had when she was escalating the Kansas trip planning battle with Clark. It did not occur to Lois that, perhaps, Lana’s overtures of friendship and excitement to meet a new person with whom she had overlapping interests might be genuine. With every smile, enthusiastic nod of the head, and burst of laughter, the primary thought in Lois’s mind was the gleefully malicious knowledge that Lana was in way over her head and had no idea that she was the loser in a 4-D chess match. 

Lois offered to help clean up after dinner, help which was accepted. Mr. Kent cleaned the grill, while Mrs. Kent had Lois brought the leftover corn cobs to the composter and proceeded to give her a preview of coming attractions. She had some things to do in town the next day, figured Lois and Clark would come with her, and then they’d all head off to the fair on Saturday. 

“We usually go with the Ross family,” Mrs. Kent informed her. “So it’ll be a big group, but that makes it more fun.”

Lois assumed that the Ross family were related to PeteRoss who Clark mentioned almost as often as he talked about Lana - though, he didn’t refer to him as My Friend Pete, but rather PeteRoss, as though his first and last name were one word. Unlike Clark who moved to Metropolis, and Lana, who lived in Coast City, PeteRoss came back to Smallville after college. 

Lois recalled some specific facts about him - namely that he and Clark were roommates while PeteRoss got his ag business degree and Clark double majored in Journalism and English. 

Speak of the devil, Clark strolled over while Lois and his mom were finishing up the dishes. He’d walked Lana back to her place, but in the kitchen lights, Lois couldn’t see any trace of pink pastel lip gloss on Clark’s face. Which either meant he was actively trying to conceal a relationship or Lois’s theory about frustrated romance was 100% accurate. Given their seating arrangements at dinner (Lana sat next to Mrs. Kent and across from Lois at the table) and the fact that THE T-SHIRT was still tucked into his jeans, Lois was leaning toward the latter. 

“I’m out,” he said bluntly as he strolled into the kitchen, picking up a towel to dry the dishes. Rolling his eyes, he spoke directly to Lois, “Lana wanted me to tell you - and I quote - ‘Clearly the universe put you in my life just so I could meet Lois.’ She’s being deeply embarrassing about you.”

Mrs. Kent snorted and Lois shrugged with false modesty. 

“What can I say? I’m clearly the best,” she said, beaming a triumphant smile.

“Well, yeah, obviously,” Clark replied with a huffing chuckle. Mrs. Kent left them to finish cleaning up so she and Mr. Kent could settle in and watch the episode of Jeopardy! that they recorded on the television during dinner. They made quick work of the dishes and Clark leaned on the counter, looking down at Lois with that same fond smile he’d given her when he showed her the guest room.

“I’m really happy you’re here,” he said with a guileless sincerity that always made Lois squirm a little bit. 

It was a brand of unselfconscious sweetness that Lois automatically associated with people who’d had a little too much to drink - sure, it was nice to say, but it wasn’t like they meant it. Only she knew Clark hadn’t been drinking (was never drinking when he acted like this) and she just didn’t know how to categorize this behavior. Usually people only said things like that when they wanted something. Like, put a compliment in, get something in return, even if it was just another compliment. 

Only Clark never seemed to expect anything, which brought a whole other facet to the exchange that Lois just couldn’t put her finger on. Maybe this was all part of the Kent Charm Offensive - more often than she cared to admit, she was extremely tempted to unload and start returning sincerity for sincerity, but she always managed to stop herself before she started spewing real feelings.

“I’m really happy to be here,” Lois parroted back, employing the strategy she usually used when she was on the receiving end of this kind of attention; just repeat back what the person said to you, so they felt validated. She bid good-night to Clark, his parents, and the dogs, then shut herself in the bedroom to decompress.

It wasn’t that Lois didn’t have feelings, she did. It was just that there was nowhere safe for them to go outside her own head. Historically, the Lanes were a family that espoused the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ philosophy of life - actually, the American version which was more, ‘Suck It Up, No One Wants to Hear Your Whining.’ They didn’t express emotion to each other, if they did it was…the saturated version of whatever the primary feeling was. 

Like, it was too much to be happy, but it was okay to be pleased. It was too much to be sad, it was okay to be disappointed. It was too much to be angry, it was okay to be frustrated. It was too much to be proud, it was okay to be satisfied. That kind of thinking was partly why Lois wrote Clark off as a hopeless idiot when she first met him, he expressed himself in a way that felt so…raw, to Lois. Stupidly vulnerable.

In the kitchen, when he said he was happy she was there, she could tell he meant it and it made her feel uncomfortable. As though she was…responsible for him somehow, in sparking and kindling a feeling that was way too big for her to manage. Maybe that was why her mom thought she couldn’t hack it with kids -

Shut it down, Lane. Shut it down now. 

It was inevitable, maybe, seeing the Kents playing Happy Family downstairs that Lois would constantly draw comparisons to her own family. Lois was six when her mom left and she distinctly remembered feeling like it would be inconvenient if she broke down. So she didn’t, not in front of her dad, her sister, not in front of the kids at school. If she cried about it privately, she’d long since forgotten. 

There was a knock on the door (Lois learned her lesson and closed it this time). She got up to open it and found Mrs. Kent standing on the other side with towels in her hands.

“Not sure if you’re a night showerer or a morning showerer, but I got these from the hall linen closet for you,” she said, pointing said closet out to Lois. “If you need the internet, the security key’s on the router in Clark’s room - you can go in and take a picture if you want to. We’ll probably be heading into town at nine or ten tomorrow, you can set an alarm or I can just holler.”

“Oh. Thanks,” she said, a little taken aback by Mrs. Kent’s hospitality…and also intrigued by the fact that she’d just been given permission to poke around Clark’s bedroom. 

She accepted the towels and Mrs. Kent headed downstairs, bidding her good-night. Lois left them on the edge of the bed and proceeded down the hall to the room that Clark off-handedly mentioned was his earlier.

Childhood bedrooms fascinated her, probably because she didn’t have one of her own. Most of the flotsam and jetsam of Lois’s childhood was gone, donated, lost, or tossed out between moves. She hadn’t had a family home to go to since college; her dad had been in D.C. for the last several years, but Lois never stayed with him and she certainly couldn’t claim the house Lucy shared with her husband as a home for her. Her dorm in college and later apartment in Metropolis were too small to clutter up with odds and ends.

Come to think of it, the only things Lois had that were tangible reminders of her childhood were digital; CDs onto which she’d burned music she liked or thumb drives that had her juvenalia (you know, if the Smithsonian needed it some day). She also had a Game Boy she got as a birthday present when she turned ten that still worked and which she had never gotten rid of. 

By contrast, Clark’s room was a veritable time capsule. Most of the floor space was taken up by the bed and a desk containing an ancient PC - that caught her eye immediately and she was sorely tempted to boot it up since she could only imagine there was some truly awful fanfiction stored on the hard drive. She resisted temptation, however, and instead perused the rest of the room. There were honest-to-God stuffed animals on the bed, and a built-in shelf with little participation trophies from various town sports activities, honor cords from his high school graduation draped over the dresser, and a pin board with photos and random crap tacked up on the wall. Movie ticket stubs, mini-golf score cards, enamel pins, and fading photos. 

Breaking news: Lana was a fake redhead. Lois recognized her, even though she was wearing clothes that were trendy ten years ago, had dirty blonde hair, and plucked her eyebrows so thin they practically disappeared. It looked like she started adopting her current style at the end of high school; there was a picture of her and Clark at a prom where not only did she finally sport red hair (and eyebrows), she was wearing a poofy pink 1950s-style dress. 

These were candids, not posed like the Great Wall of Clark on the stairwell, and he looked like the biggest goober in all of them - well, most of them. Apparently puberty hit him like a 2x4 since he was only a mid-sized goober in the earlier photos. There was one picture featuring wee!Clark and a dog that Lois at first mistook for Callie until she realized the coloring was different. An old leather collar sitting on a shelf with a dented tag that said ‘Shelby,’ told her all she needed to know about that one. 

His bookshelves had a motley assortment of titles, from the Jedi Apprentice and Animorphs series, paperbacks editions of classic lit, the The Lord of the Rings trilogy bound with fancy-looking fake leather covers, and various iterations of D&D guidebooks. On the bottom shelf, lying on their sides, were four hardcover yearbooks from Smallville Senior High School. 

Lois grabbed the one from Clark’s senior year, flipping through to read the messages. Most of them were pretty generic, wishing Clark a good summer, good luck in college, thanks-for-the-memories-keep-in-touch. A few were from teachers, encouraging him to keep up with his writing, thanking him for being a good student. Some longer paragraphs that were so full of inside jokes she had no idea what the person was talking about (one of the most absurd was from PeteRoss, who did sign his full name under the message he wrote). Oddly, there was nothing from Lana, not even a signature.  

She flipped to the K section of the yearbook, finding Clark sandwiched between Evan Kearns and Melissa Keough. A black-and-white version of the senior picture from the hallway smiled up at her. His clubs and activities list included Yearbook, Photography Club, Drama Club (she was going to have to ask him about that), and Newspaper. His personal quote was tooth-rottingly sentimental and completely typical of Clark: 

“There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.” 

Lois hadn’t completely shut the door to Clark’s room and she could hear noise drifting up from the living room. It sounded like he was sitting with his parents, actively engaged in playing along with the Jeopardy! recording. Doing the happy family thing, regardless of whether they had an audience or not. 

She shut the yearbook and crawled around until she found the router. Lois took advantage of the fact that the Kents were all busy to use the bathroom, wash her face, and brush her teeth. She changed into her pajamas and crawled into bed. It was at that moment her phone decided to blow up with a series of increasingly desperate texts from Cat.  

HOW DO YOU KNOW LANA LANG?????

HAVE YOU BEEN HOLDING OUT ON ME?

SHE’S MY FAVORITE VINTAGE FASHION MICRO INFLUENCER.

ARE YOU STILL WITH HER? CAN YOU ASK IF SHE’D DO AN INTERVIEW?

LOIS. LOIS. LOIS. LOIS PLEASE. LOIS. LOISSSSSSSSSSS. 🥺

Lois opened Instagram with a small frown. Lana had snapped a picture of her during dinner and tagged it. Given Lois’s assessment of Lana and her motives, she assumed it would be hideous, taken from a bad angle, possibly involving Lois talking with her mouth full. 

Nope. It was a shot of Lois in a rare moment from the evening: listening to someone else. She had her head propped up on her chin and her hair was falling into her face in a way that might be described as ‘artful’ rather than ‘messy.’ Lois hadn’t been aware until that moment that she had a good side, but Lana captured it. The caption read: 

How have I lived a life without @TorchyLane in it?? Lucky for me the universe rectified this mistake! Thanks Universe!

Was there such a thing as 5-D chess? Had Lana taken her Evil Master Plan to the digital playing field?

(Did Lana maybe genuinely like her, regardless of whatever feelings she may or may not have for Clark?)

Lois put her phone on airplane mode and went to sleep. 

She was awakened by neither her phone alarm (which she forgot to set) nor Mrs. Kent hollering at her, but by sunlight streaming across her face and a really loud bird chirping outside the window. When she stumbled to the door, the smell of bacon wafted up from the kitchen, jolting her into wakefulness.

Lois ran into the bathroom, took a shower, brushed her teeth, and dressed for the day (still slightly damp because she brought her clothes into the bathroom with her, not wanting to risk running into any member of the Kent family wrapped in just a towel). Mrs. Kent was in the kitchen, reusable shopping bags scattered around the floor at her feet, each bulging with yards and yards of fabric stuffed inside. 

“Mornin’, doll!” she greeted Lois. “Let me get your breakfast.”

It was clear that everyone else in the household had already eaten, but Mrs. Kent thoughtfully kept a plate of bacon, eggs, and pancakes warm for her, along with a bottle of maple syrup and some softened butter. She poured Lois a cup of hot coffee and a glass of cold water. As Lois sat down to eat, Mrs. Kent resumed her previous activity, which was filling out thick sheets of paper that, at first glance, appeared to be large recipe cards.

“Is that for the quilt showcase?” Lois asked, making the connection between the cards and the contents of the bags.

“Yep,” Mrs. Kent confirmed. “If I thought ahead I would’ve typed them up, but I…didn’t. It’s fine, if anyone asks, I’ll say I was going for a homemade look to compliment the spirit of the exhibit or some bullshit.”

She winked, then resumed her work. It was heartening to see that an adult-adult like Mrs. Kent (yes, Lois was old enough to rent a car, no Lois did not always consider herself an adult) admitting to leaving things until the last minute and then half-assing the end results.

“Clark and Jonathan are doing chores,” Mrs. Kent continued without looking up from her writing. “Clark’ll be back soon though, for the drive into town. He said you’d be fine with helping us mount the quilts and doing some set-up at the historical society, but I wanted to double-check that’s okay with you. It’ll be maybe a half-hour to an hour, tops.”  

Lois agreed that she’d be fine helping out with whatever Mrs. Kent needed (the woman kept feeding her delicious food, she owed her). Then Clark entered the kitchen and her brain short-circuited. 

He was wearing a new t-shirt. It was black. THE T-SHIRT had been white and thus more showy of the body-ody-ody, but there was something about Clark in black that was…um. Also nice. He wasn’t sweaty (though the black would have hidden it), but his hair was tousled from the wind and there was dirt under his fingernails (he had taken his shoes off and was padding around in white socks, which spoiled the visuals slightly, though not as significantly as mouth-kissing his dog). 

“Morning, Lois,” he said, going to the sink to wash his hands. To his mother he asked, “Are there more pancakes?”

Like a wizard, Mrs. Kent magically produced more pancakes and bacon, which Clark ate over the sink like tacos, drizzling them liberally with syrup. He also made “iced coffee” by taking the lukewarm remains of the coffee pot and pouring that over ice. Then he added chocolate milk and swirled the concoction together, dubbing it the ‘shortcut mocha.’

He was, objectively, a goober. A doofus. But also. Maybe. A little cute? Did she think he was cute? If the question had been put to her a week ago, she would have scoffed and said that Clark was cute in the way that a kitten was cute, like, she would never object to looking at a kitten, might get some extra dopamine from looking at a kitten, but it also didn’t do anything for her, you know?

Today, with T-Shirt Part 2 Electric Boogaloo, she could begrudgingly admit that Clark might, in certain clothes, be cute-cute. Even while chugging his coffee abomination. 

Lois helped Mrs. Kent load the quilts into her Subaru while Clark took a shower and changed clothes. He opted for shorts to wear into town, but the sight of his ankles did not cause Lois to swoon, proof that she was God’s strongest soldier. 

“Is your dad coming?” she asked as they headed to the car.

“No, but he’s planning to call it quits early and take us for ice cream, when we get back,” Clark said. “McPherson Dairy always sold pints, but now they’ve got a trailer they’re selling cones and sundaes from. You’ll get to see a cow!”

“The dream!” Lois exclaimed, hopping up into the back seat. Mrs. Kent cranked the tunes and they were off.

For what turned out to be a nearly hour-long car ride. 

Given the fact that the town was called ‘Smallville’ Lois assumed it would be some flavor of petite. It very much was not, at least in terms of getting from place to place. They drove down a long, flat road surrounded by fields as though they were on a loop, though, to hear Mrs. Kent and Clark tell it, all of the identical fields were not actually the same field copy and pasted on either side of them. Some were ‘The Ross Property,’ while others were, ‘The Kearns Property.’ The Kearns fields were different from the other fields because their fields had horses.

To her credit, Lois did not fall asleep this time (regardless of the fact that there was nothing to stay awake for). She was fully conscious as they made their way into Town. 

Town looked just like it was lifted from the set of a midcentury live-action Disney movie. Little brick buildings dotted Main St. (yes, the central thoroughfare was called Main Street) with their purposes proudly painted on their windows or carved into wooden signs. There was a hardware store, a general store, a greengrocer, a beauty parlor, a gas station cum mechanic, a thrift and consignment shop, a Town Hall, a library, an elementary school, a junior high, the senior high school, and a few churches. All of this surrounded a little park complete with a gazebo. 

The Smallville Historical Society building was located off the main road between the library and Smallville Elementary School. It was a little white clapboard structure with an empty bell tower.

“They took the bell out years ago,” Mrs. Kent informed Lois as they took the quilt bags out of the trunk. “Folks were worried a lightning strike would set the whole thing on fire. Used to be a one-room schoolhouse way back in the day.”

“Yikes,” Lois said without thinking and Mrs. Kent laughed. 

"Yeah, let me tell you right now,” she said as they approached the building, “if I didn’t have a radio, I wouldn’t make the drive. Poor Clark would’ve been homeschooled.”

“Poor Clark?” he repeated, sneaking ahead of them to open the door and hold it for his mother and Lois. “I would’ve learned feminist theory, queer history, and art. I wouldn’t have had to take math, it would have been great, what are you talking about?”

“Flattery will get you absolutely nowhere,” his mom shook her head, then smiled and greeted a woman who was already inside, MaryEllen, who she talked about yesterday. 

MaryEllen was older than Mrs. Kent, or at least appeared that way. She was more what Lois imagined when she thought of a kind of quintessential Midwestern mom, she was wearing shapeless capris, a patterned wrap-style blouse, and obviously found a hairstyle she loved in the 90s and just stuck with it through the changing of decades.

She greeted Clark and Mrs. Kent in a friendly, neighborly way, then her eyes locked in on Lois.

“Who’s this?” she asked, looking between Lois and Clark with a smile normally only seen on the great white shark. 

“Lois Lane,” Lois said, extending a hand before either Clark or Mrs. Kent could introduce her. “I work with Clark at the Daily Planet.”

MaryEllen shook Lois’s hand, smile becoming even sharper. “Oh, a reporter, that’s fine! What brings you to Smallville? Is your newspaper covering the exhibit?”

“Ha! No,” Lois barked out a laugh, assuming this woman was being sarcastic and only realized her mistake when Clark started laughing - which he quickly turned into a hacking cough, while Mrs. Kent glossed over the whole thing and changed the subject, asking what MaryEllen’s vision for the exhibit was.  

Clark and Lois were quickly sent to the hardware store to get more mounting clips and they were barely out of earshot when Clark resumed laughing his ass off.

“Shut up,” Lois groaned, covering her face with her hands. “Who was that, the mayor’s wife? Why the fuck would the Planet be covering a quilt show?”

“Because MaryEllen O’Keefe has delusions of grandeur,” Clark said when he caught his breath, leading the way back to Main St. “That was beautiful, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone’s face literally fall before, thank you so much for the privilege.”

“Ugh,” Lois moaned again, glancing back at the old schoolhouse. “Did I completely fuck things up for your mom?”

“Oh, no, she’s probably thrilled,” Clark reassured her. “MaryEllen’s on every committee in a fifty-mile radius, her kids are all grown, but she rules the PTA with an iron fist, when there’s a Town Council meeting she shows up with a prepared speech, that kind of thing. It’s healthy for her to be brought down to earth every once in a while, believe me, you’re fine.”

“HEY SLUT!”

Of all the things Lois Lane expected to have shouted at her on a random street in a one-stoplight town in the middle of Kansas, it was not that. She whipped around, middle finger at the ready, until she realized that she wasn’t being catcalled. Clark was. 

Like Lana, another figure took a flying leap at him, though this one was taller, lankier and distinctly more masculine. As with Lana, Clark caught his assailant, who wrapped him up in a massive hug, though he didn’t knock Clark’s glasses off this time. Apparently hugging Clark in as violent a manner as possible was Smallville’s most popular pastime. Lois felt a little left out; she’d never hugged Clark at all before, either violently or gently. 

“Hey, Pete,” Clark greeted him, setting Pete (probably PeteRoss, of legend) back on his feet. Pete was tall, thin, with pale blue eyes and fluffy blonde hair, looking not unlike early career Art Garfunkel. He was wearing coveralls, dusty boots, and a brown cotton shirt that had seen better days. “Pete, this is Lois, Lois this is - ”

“Holy shit, the Lois Lane!” Pete grinned down at her and stuck his hand out to shake. “This is like meeting a celebrity, how’re you doing?”

“Good,” Lois said, shaking his hand and returning the smile. “You’re the PeteRoss?”

“Fuck, she knows my name, incredible,” Pete shook his head, disbelieving. “How’s your day going so far?”

“Excellent,” Clark answered for both of them, smiling ear to ear and gesturing toward Lois like he was super effing proud of her. “MaryEllen thought Lois was here to write an article about the Historical Society’s freaking quilt exhibit, she laughed in her face.”

Pete’s mouth fell open. Then he dropped to one knee, took up Lois’s left hand in his right, and gazed very seriously into her eyes. “Marry me.”

Clark snorted and rolled his eyes while Lois let out another laugh. 

“Ooh, tough luck man,” Clark said, getting an elbow under Pete’s arm and urging him up. “That’s exactly how she responded to MaryEllen.”

Pete closed his eyes and dropped Lois’s hand, clutching dramatically at his heart as he got to his feet. 

“I was hoping to get through life and have nothing in common with that woman,” he sighed. “Yet, here I am. Foiled. Anyway, what are y’all up to?”

“Helping MaryEllen,” Lois deadpanned and Pete nodded. 

“She draws everyone into her orbit, she’s like a black hole,” he shook his head sadly. He and Clark exchanged a few words, though they lost Lois when Pete explained why he was in town - he’d come to pick up a ‘55 cc auger,’ whatever that was. The two of them proceeded to Speak Farm as they made their way down the road.

Pete held the door when they entered the hardware store. Following the jingling of bells, a chorus of voices greeted them in chorus, like the Village of the Damned, only middle-aged and rural rather than pre-pubescent and British. 

“Hey there, Pete. Hey there, Clark.”

Clark and Pete returned the greetings, mercifully not in unison. Pete drew everyone’s attention to Lois with a wave of his hand and a general introduction of, “This is Clark’s friend Lois from Metropolis.”

“Hey there, Lois.”

“Hey there,” she replied, giving into the hive mind and vaguely waving at the people in the shop, both customers and staff. 

Pete knew his way around and in no time they had their clamps, he picked up his auger (which looked like a dentist drill for a giant). Then, with reluctance, said he had to get back to work.

“We’re going for ice cream this afternoon,” Clark told him as they prepared to part. “Want to come?”

“Hell yeah, text me when you’re heading out” Pete agreed readily. “We can pregame on sugar before the fair tomorrow. Are you ready to absolutely wreck your digestive tract, Lois?”

Pete wasn’t instantly charismatic, like Lana, or effortlessly charming, like Clark. He had a definite bro-energy that could easily read as pesky and annoying. Hell, he was probably borderline unbearable in high school, but time may have mellowed his personality into something tolerable, even funny. On paper, PeteRoss was not the kind of person Lois would be inclined to be friends with, but she did feel strangely comfortable around him, despite his unhinged way of greeting his best friend and general air of dudeliness.

“Born ready!” she declared, driving one clenched fist into the palm of her other hand. PeteRoss wasn’t the only person who could use unwarranted dramatics to make a point. “I’m mentally and physically prepared to eat a bunch of fried food and then immediately go on the Tilt-A-Whirl. I’m also hoping there’s a chance for me to win a ridiculously large stuffed animal.”

“Oh yeah, she’s ready,” Pete nodded approvingly, patting Lois on the shoulder like a coach would to their star player before The Big Game. “I’ll see y’all later - nice to meet you Lois!”

“Nice to meet you, PeteRoss!” she called back and meant it. 

Just…in a pleased way. Not a happy way.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take that long to mount the quilts, especially since MaryEllen seemed to want them gone as fast as possible. They got lunch in town at a little diner that looked like it came straight out of a Norman Rockwell illustration and which served perfectly greasy grilled cheese sandwiches and double-fried French fries. Clark got a strawberry milkshake to go.

“Aren’t we getting ice cream?” Lois asked, since she would have gotten a milkshake too if she was informed that their dessert plans had changed.

“We are,” Clark confirmed, between slurps. “I can always eat.”

Again, Lois was struck by how same-but-different Clark was in Smallville. She was pretty sure he brought the same brown bag lunch to work every day (turkey sandwich, bag of chips, apple, bottle of iced tea) and he always let her pick the place they ordered from during TV and Takeout. She’d already thought (a lot) about the differences in how he dressed. And seeing him with Lana and Pete put a new perspective on how he interacted with other people, highlighting the respectful distance he kept from her. Lois wouldn’t have called Clark ‘meek’ by any means, but he was a lot more mild-mannered in Metropolis than in Smallville. 

Lois knew still waters ran deep and all, but she was starting to suspect that there was a whole Mariana Trench of Clark Kent that she had yet to discover. She was tempted to say he’d been hiding himself from her. 

Not anymore, though. Lois could hardly claim Clark was hiding anything when he let her drink a quarter of his milkshake and engaged in carpool karaoke with his mom on the ride back to the farm (unsurprisingly, given his mother’s tastes, he knew the words to every single Indigo Girls song). 

As Lois hummed along, she reflected that it was kind of cool that she was being presented with this same-but-different Clark. When they got back to Metropolis, she’d have this secret knowledge of things like his favorite snack (freaking tomatoes), what his singing voice sounded like (on-pitch, but nothing special), and the fact that he had enough petty in him to find humor in overbearing soccer moms getting a reality check. 

Lois was a reporter, so when she found out brand new information, her first impulse was to tell everyone. But on the subject of Clark Kent, Complex Human Being, she thought she might keep it to herself. It was nice, feeling like she knew him in a way other people didn’t. At least, other people in Metropolis; it was pretty clear that his recent behavior and demeanor were completely normal, as far as his family and friends were concerned. 

As someone who found it incredibly difficult to conceal any aspect of her personality (the good, the bad, and the ugly), the fact that Clark could compartmentalize himself was intriguing. Like a puzzle she could solve just by spending more time with him - and, naturally, such intense investigation required fuel for the body and mind. Namely, ice cream. 

They took Mr. Kent’s truck on their quest. It was a pretty cozy squeeze; she, Mrs. Kent and PeteRoss sat in the back, while Mr. Kent and Clark got the front. Unlike his wife, Mr. Kent didn’t plug in his phone with a pre-made playlist, but instead cranked up the radio to a random pop-country station.

Honestly, if Lois wanted to give herself an investigative challenge, she would have done better to concentrate on Mr. Kent rather than Clark. He was definitely more of a strong, silent type, which either meant, as with Clark, that he was hiding multiple different iterations of himself beneath the surface, or that he just didn’t have much to say.  

Mr. Kent kept his eyes on the road while the rest of the car chattered around him. When they recounted the morning’s historical society incident, he did glance briefly into the rearview mirror to make eye contact with Lois.

“Good for you,” he said.

That was it. Three words in thirty minutes of driving. 

There was no sign for the McPherson Dairy, but there were a lot of cars in the half-circle driveway cum parking lot in front of the property. Mr. Kent pulled into a space that would fit his truck (Lois couldn’t accurately describe it as a parking spot since there were no lines or any indication that he was supposed to park there) and they all got out. 

The first thing that struck her about the dairy was the smell, which, no word of a lie, kind of put Lois off the idea of eating food. Intellectually she understood that the combination of summer sun and a herd of cattle didn’t make for a blissfully aromatic scent, but it still wasn’t pleasant. 

None of her companions seemed bothered, nor did any of the other groups wandering around, some sitting at picnic tables with their ice cream treats, others headed back to their cars with baked goods and metal baskets containing glass milk bottles. The set-up was pretty nice, there was a huge barn some distance back from the road, surrounded by open-air metal structures where a variety of black and white spotted cows were munching on hay. Closer to the road was a smaller wooden building where the baked goods were sold and a chrome trailer containing a teenager who was taking and filling ice cream orders. 

One thing that was equal parts adorable and disturbing was a fenced-in area, containing little plastic igloo-looking things that were apparently homes for the baby cows. The babies were cute, but there was a slightly intense sign posted at regular intervals by the fence which read: THESE ARE NOT VEAL CALVES. 

On the one hand, yay for the calves that would presumably go on to live long, happy lives. On the other hand, the sign was a reminder that there were other calves who would not be so lucky. 

Toughen up, Lane, Lois reminded herself. You’re not going vegan any time soon so don’t get weird about the baby cows.

Clark checked his watch and nudged Lois’s arm. “The dairy barn’s open, if you want to watch them being milked.”

Pete sneaked up behind him, rising up on his toes and resting his chin on Clark’s shoulder. He’d changed out of his work clothes into shorts and a t-shirt, but (like Lois) his attire was destined for lower case mediocrity compared to Clark’s. His formerly fluffy curls succumbed to hat hair and were matted down around his ears.

“They say it’s an experience like no,” Pete began, then paused dramatically, “…udder.”

Clark closed his eyes and looked physically pained.

“Wow,” he said, bringing up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “I might actually be dead? Like, I’m dead, this is hell. I’m in hell.”

“Aww,” Pete put an arm around Clark’s shoulders and jostled him bracingly as they walked up the path toward the milking barn. “You love it. You love me. Every day in Metropolis you pine for this.”

“I don’t. You leave me about fifteen voice memos a day, I don’t have time to miss you…” 

Lois followed them to the dairy barn where the smell got way worse. Breathing shallowly through her mouth helped a tiny bit and she was able to observe the milking process which involved way more machinery and way fewer people sitting on stools than she was expecting. And a lot more poop.

Pete looked at her and whispered, “Yeah, this is why - no matter what TikTok says - it’s really not a great idea to drink raw milk.”

Lois bravely withstood the assault on her senses for about two minutes before Clark intervened.

“You sound like you’re hyperventilating, do you want to go?” Clark asked, looking down at Lois in concern. “We can check out the pie selection before we get our cones.”

That sounded like an excellent suggestion to Lois. Besides, once you’ve seen one cow get hooked up to an automatic milker, you’ve seen every cow get hooked up to an automatic milker. Check that one off the bucket list. 

The pies were kept in the storefront and were sold alongside other baked goods, homemade preserves, relishes, and soups, some ready to go, some frozen. There was even a little portion of the counter that was sectioned off to take custom cake orders for special occasions.

The Kents were standing in the custom order section, talking to the young couple behind the counter. They were introduced to Lois as Hank and Laurie McPherson. Laurie was obviously pregnant and it seemed that the impending birth had been the main topic of discussion before Lois, Clark, and Pete showed up.

It was exactly the kind of conversation that made Lois lose interest as soon as the subject was introduced. She didn’t object to children existing in the world, certainly didn’t want anything bad to befall any child, but in practice? She didn’t vibe with kids, she didn’t want any of her own, and she really didn’t want to hear stories about other people’s children. 

She and Lucy were close once upon a time. They only really started drifting when Lucy began dating her now-husband and the relationship got more distant when she started having kids. It was just not a lifestyle Lois could relate to and it occurred to her (way too late to fix it) that her lack of interest in Lucy’s domestic life was hurtful to her sister. 

As she explained to Lucy during their one and only fight about it, she wasn’t trying to be a bitch, she didn’t look down on her, she certainly didn’t hate her niblings. It just didn’t occur to her to ask in-depth questions about the kids every time they talked. She figured if something important happened (not that there could be anything that important in the life of a preschooler), her sister would tell her about it without prompting. Whenever Lucy sent her pictures of them eating food, or taking a nap, or wearing a new outfit, Lois took a glance and smiled to herself, but she didn’t think she needed to provide immediate feedback. How many texts reading Cute! 😀 did Lucy want to receive? 

More than Lois sent, it turned out. Following their blow-up on the subject over the phone, Lucy sent fewer pictures and, consequently, Lois found herself with much less to react to. That was one problem solved and about fifty more created. 

She edged away from the cake section and feigned interest in the refrigerator containing pies to go. Her ears only perked up when the conversation shifted to background information about Clark. 

“I was saying,” Laurie continued a story she’d been telling about her baby shower, “that if I was going to take advice from anyone, it’d be the Kents.”

“Oh, God, why?” Mrs. Kent asked with a disbelieving laugh. “My advice is that there’s exactly one secret to parenting: no one knows what they’re doing and we’re all just winging it.”

Hank cringed, “That’s what I was worried you’d say.”

“I don't know,” Laurie replied, thoughtfully, “that’s more comforting than thinking there’s a code and y’all cracked it.”

“We definitely didn’t crack anything,” Mrs. Kent confirmed.

“Oh, stop,” Laurie insisted. “Not to give him a swelled head or anything, but you did a pretty great job with Clark.”

Mr. Kent shrugged and, to Lois’s shock, spoke several sentences together. 

“He’s a pretty great kid,” Mr. Kent agreed. “Don’t know how much credit we can take, though. I figure most of that’s just him. Kind-hearted, good head on his shoulders, smart as a whip - ” 

“Stoooooop,” Clark said, his voice taking on a whiny little kid quality that made Lois hide a smile behind her hand. 

Clark’s face was screwed up in a grimace, as though hearing himself complimented was as physically painful as listening to Pete’s terrible puns. The back of his neck flushed red, a color that traveled all the way up to the tips his ears. Lois had never seen Clark blush before and the effect was…kind of cute.

“Modest,” Mr. Kent added, with a wry smile up at his son. To Laurie and Hank, he continued, “We sure made our share of mistakes. Everyone gets things wrong, bringing up kids.”

Mrs. Kent started whistling a tune that was familiar-ish to Lois, but which had a profound effect on Mr. Kent. 

“The hell, Martha?” he asked, with more animation in his face and voice than Lois had yet seen. He scrubbed a hand over his face, looking torn between amusement and embarrassment. “I wasn’t going to bring that one up.”

Of course, knowing that there was a parenting fail which Mr. Kent found worthy of concealment naturally aroused the curiosity of the group - Lois included. She turned away from the pies to listen in. 

“I showed Clark Old Yeller when he was too young for it,” Mr. Kent said, with a palpable air of chagrin.

“I’m still too young for it,” Clark interjected, lips pressed together, clearly trying to hide a smile. Apparently this wasn’t such a huge parenting mistake that he was still traumatized. 

“How old were you?” Laurie asked, tilting her head up at Clark.

“Seven,” Clark and Mrs. Kent replied in chorus. 

Lois winced; she had a vague memory of watching Old Yeller once as a teenager on television and even with commercial interruptions, the movie still packed an upsetting punch. The rest of the group clearly agreed for they emitted noises that more or less sounded like ‘Oooof.’

Mr. Kent shrugged again, this time an acknowledgement of defeat; his wife decided to launch into the full retelling of the tale, complete with emphatic hand gestures. Their dynamic was extremely entertaining to watch, Mrs. Kent being gregarious and animated, Mr. Kent being slow to react and measured. It was funny, because she could see both of them in Clark - he was definitely more of a yapper, like his mom, but he was also thoughtful, like his dad, and it took a lot to get him really worked up. 

“I hadn’t even shown him Bambi yet,” Mrs. Kent explained, folding her arms like the memory was still fresh enough to annoy her. “I was out when all this went down, by the way - it never would’ve happened if I was home. It was parent-teacher conferences and at the high school we all go get drinks after. Anyway, long story short, I remember getting back around eleven at night. Clark should have been in bed hours ago, but he’s up on the couch crying his eyes out and Jonathan’s just rubbing his back. I thought he was sick or hurt, so I ask what happened and this one says - ”

“I told her I showed him the movie - ”

“That’s not what you said,” Mrs. Kent interrupted, shooting Mr. Kent a look over the top of her glasses. “You said, and I quote, ‘I let him watch Old Yeller,’ and I said, ‘Let him?’ because I knew Clark wouldn’t have asked to see it, he didn’t know what it was.”

“I came clean,” Mr. Kent admitted. “Told her I showed him the movie. And that he was pretty upset by it.”

“‘Pretty upset,’” Mrs. Kent rolled her eyes. “I carried him upstairs - and remember, he’s seven, so he’s not little-little anymore - get him in his PJs, face washed, teeth brushed, he’s starting to settle down. Then Shelby comes in - the dog, she used to sleep in his bed every night - and he just starts bawling again.”

“Oooh, poor baby Clark,” Laurie tutted sympathetically. A glance at Clark showed him to be badly concealing a smirk; apparently he found stories of him crying over a kids’ movie from a hundred years ago a less humiliating ordeal than listening to his father say nice things about him. 

“I wasn’t trying to traumatize him,” Mr. Kent muttered, scratching the back of his head. “I liked that movie as a kid - hey, he liked most of the movie.”

“Yeah, Pa, until the kid had to shoot the dog!” Clark exclaimed, laughing half in genuine amusement, half in outrage.

“He gets another dog by the end!” Mr. Kent pointed out, which sent Clark off on a soliloquy about how an uplifting ending did not make up for the misery of what came before - citing Dumbo, Up, and The Fox and the Hound as examples.

“Anyway, he starts carrying on,” Mrs. Kent continued the story before they could get too sidetracked by a discussion of depressing kids’ movies. “Crying and asking if Shelby’s going to die and I’m saying no, not for a long time, and you know, the dog in the movie didn’t actually die, they were just pretending. I said they wanted to tell a sad story, but it wasn’t real and the dog was just fine and lived a long while, and probably went and made a lot of other movies.”

“How much of this do you remember?” Lois asked Clark curiously.

“I remember watching the movie and being really upset,” Clark replied. With a slightly abashed grin and in a hushed tone, he added, “I have no memory of this subsequent conversation.”

“Don’t worry, I remember vividly,” his mother assured him, patting his arm. “Because you look up at me, with those big blue eyes and your little lip all stuck out and you go, ‘You promise?’ And because I don’t believe in lying to children, I now have to go look all this up. I head downstairs, where we had the computer, and it’s dial-up internet, it’s slow as shit - keep in mind, it’s midnight now - and I’m looking up the life and times of this damn dog instead of, y’know, sleeping and I have work in the morning.”

“Where were you while all this was happening?” Hank asked Mr. Kent suspiciously.

“Oh, he’s asleep,” Mrs. Kent said before her husband could get a word in. “At this point, he’d been in bed about forty-five minutes by the time I booted up the computer.”

“Listen,” Mr. Kent spoke up in his defense. “I can admit when I’m out of my depth. Martha was handling it, the best thing I could do was stay out of her way.”

“I will never forget,” Mrs. Kent shook her head and started ticking off facts on her fingers. “The dog’s name was Spike, he was a mastiff-lab mix, he was two years old when he made Old Yeller , it was only his second movie, and he went on to have a fine career as a canine actor. I tell Clark all of this, that finally calms him down enough that he can sleep and I kept him back from school the next day because I was exhausted. So yeah. That’s our gold star parenting. Like I said, we’re not in a position to tell anyone what to do.”

“Except maybe don’t show your kid Old Yeller,” Mr. Kent concluded.

The conversation with the McPhersons turned back to their gestating child, their birth plan, what they’d packed in their hospital bag, the dos and don’ts of the meal train. Lois’s interest flagged again and she noticed PeteRoss nudging Clark, with a smug smile on his face.

“Where’s my ten bucks?” Pete asked, quietly enough not to be overheard by the McPherson’s, but not so quietly that the question escaped Lois’s hearing.

With a frown, Clark removed a bill from his wallet and placed it in Pete’s outstretched hand.

“Thank you,” Pete said graciously. To Lois he added, “We had a bet going of how long it’d be before you heard an embarrassing story about Clark’s childhood. He figured the first one would drop on the ride back from the airport, I said, nah, your parents are cool. I knew they’d give it at least twenty-four hours.”

“That’s not an embarrassing story,” Laurie objected, pausing her conversation to call out to Pete. “I think it’s nice that Clark was a sensitive kid!”

“Was?” Pete asked, making a face which implied that Clark was still, very much, a sensitive kid. 

Lois didn’t think the story was embarrassing either…nor did she think it was an example of bad parenting. Mr. Kent wasn’t trying to freak Clark out and clearly he hadn’t told him to buck up and stop crying which was pretty a-typical of most dads, in Lois’s experience. And Mrs. Kent stayed up doing research so that her reassurance was evidence-based. Who did that? The Kents, apparently.

Maybe it was the adoption thing again? Maybe adoptive parents went above and beyond for their kids in a way bio parents didn’t feel compelled to?

Or maybe your parents were just kind of mediocre, the unbidden thought rose in Lois’s mind before she squashed it back down again.  

Someone came in with a legitimate cake request and the Kents stopped chatting with the McPhersons so they could get back to work. The group got their ice cream shortly thereafter - cookies and cream for Clark, chocolate peanut butter swirl for Lois. Like everything else she’d eaten in Smallville, it was the best ice cream she’d ever had, soft and creamy, not freezer-burnt at all. She went nose-blind to the cow smell after a while and was able to enjoy it without gagging on the scent of manure (which the McPhersons apparently sold as fertilizer).

Fortunately the Kents didn’t take the opportunity to purchase a side of manure with their ice cream and they all loaded back into the truck for the drive home. They were about fifteen minutes down the road when Mr. Kent slowed down; there was a car stalled in the shoulder and he pulled up behind them. 

“Just going to check on them, make sure everything’s okay,” Mr. Kent said as he opened the driver’s side door.

“Want help?” Clark asked, hand already on his door handle.

Mr. Kent shook his head.

“Might not be anything to help,” he said, then departed from the truck to confer with the owner of the car. They chatted for a minute before he returned to the truck, poking his head into the doorway to explain the situation to his passengers.

“Ran over some nails, tire’s all tore up,” he said. “Young mom, two little kids, so she’s got her hands full. Assistance is looking like it’s two hours out, so I’m going to help her out. Lois?”

It took Lois a second to respond since there was no reason on earth why Mr. Kent should be talking to her at all at that moment.

“Uh, yes?” she asked, wondering what he wanted, half-convinced he’d accuse her of scattering nails on the road. Whenever something went wrong in the Lane household, she usually got the blame since, in contrast to Lucy, she was the difficult child.

“You ever changed a tire before?” he asked her. 

“Uh, no?” she responded. Truth be told, she’d never owned a car before. Between public transportation and rideshare she could get around Metropolis just fine and paying a monthly fee to store it in a garage or get an on-street parking pass was an expense she didn’t need. 

Mr. Kent gestured that she should come with him. 

“I’ll show you how it’s done,” he offered. “Just in case you ever get caught with a flat.”

It was the most Dad-coded thing anyone had ever said to her - including her own father. The only way this could have been any more stereotypical would be if he called her ‘sport’ or something. Lois blinked for a second, unsure whether or not she’d been dropped into a sitcom version of her life and waited for a laugh track to start up. 

Predictably, there was no laugh track, just Mr. Kent waiting for her to get out of the truck. Lois was never one to back off from a challenge, even if it was just to learn a skill she would probably never use, so she nodded and followed Mr. Kent around to the bed of the truck where he kept a toolbox handy. 

“Do you want any - ” Clark began, but his dad waved him off before he could complete his second offer of help.

“You know how to change a tire,” Mr. Kent reminded him dismissively. “Stay put - unless you’re champing at the bit to hold the lug nuts.”

It turned out there was nothing Clark wanted more than to hold lug nuts. He stood off to the side, waving traffic around them, while Mr. Kent and Lois knelt in the gravel and he walked her through the entire process. He explained everything, from what tools to always keep in a vehicle for emergencies, to how to safely jack up the car, and how to get the tire off and replace it. 

For a man of few words, Mr. Kent was being downright loquacious. Not only did he give Lois a very thorough education in the basics of car repair, he also carried on an extremely pleasant conversation with the mom and her two kids (one of whom was a baby, so Mr. Kent mostly pulled a few funny faces to make him smile). He gave her the number for a mechanic he trusted, and his own cell phone in case she needed anything else. 

Sam Lane would never. And for good reason; her dad’s time was usually regimented down to the minute, so he didn’t have thirty extra minutes in his day to spend helping a stranger fix their car. If he did have unstructured time, he probably wouldn’t have opted to help someone who already had roadside assistance on the way. He definitely wouldn’t have given out his personal phone number all willy-nilly. 

It’s not like her father spent zero time with her when Lois was a child, but he was a single dad with a demanding job. Usually when he marked out time in his calendar for her and Lucy it was outing-based, heading to museums (often connected to military history), amusement parks, or movies. He placed a high priority on activities, not so much teaching experiences. Looking back, Lois was fairly certain he was the one to steady her when she rode a bike without training wheels. That was some stereotypical dad shit. 

“That was some damn fine mechanic work,” Mrs. Kent said when her husband was back in the car. She leaned around the side of the driver’s seat to give him a kiss, which Clark pretended not to notice. “Hot.”

“Sure is,” Mr. Kent smiled at her. “Gotta be over 80.”

Mrs. Kent laughed like Mr. Kent was the funniest person ever, while Clark rolled his eyes, muttering about how he could never escape this particular circle of hell, and Pete chided him for having an unrefined sense of humor. Mr. Kent waited until the family he’d just helped were safely back on the road before he pulled out behind them. Rather than the radio this time, he popped a CD in to play and Neil Diamond started singing about revival meetings. 

The entire car (minus Lois, who didn’t know the words) started singing and shoulder-shimmying to the beat. At one point, Mr. Kent grabbed hold of Mrs. Kent’s hand and brought it around so he could kiss it.

That was something else General Lane didn’t do (at least, as far as she knew). Whether it was a broken heart (Lucy’s theory) or being too busy (Lois’s theory), he’d never been with anyone after Lois’s mom left. If he went on dates here and there, she didn’t know, but regardless it was never serious enough that he introduced his daughters to anyone. Maybe he was trying to protect them. Or protect himself. He never said, Lois never asked. 

Maybe it was genetic; Lois didn’t date much herself. Nothing serious - when she sensed a guy was starting to look for more than just fun, that was a sign that she needed to end the relationship. She was way too busy to date, she worked too much to dedicate any appreciable time to a pet, let alone a partner. Her schedule was unpredictable and erratic - the only reason she and Clark were able to maintain a friendship was because they both worked for Perry White and neither of them got butthurt if one or the other had to cancel plans at the last minute. It was just the nature of the job. 

Lois hadn’t so much as glanced at her dating apps in the last few months; between work and friendship hangouts, fitting in any more socializing was totally out of the question. She’d already made more non-professional acquaintances after two days in Smallville than she’d made in two years in Metropolis. 

Regardless, it was nice to look at Mr. and Mrs. Kent rocking out in the car, making googly eyes at each other in the rearview mirror, and see that some relationships stood the test of time. Some people got married and stayed married. Some people were happy to be married, liked their spouses, could dig up old family drama and laugh about it, rather than using memories to reopen old wounds like tearing off a half-healed scab.

BREAKING NEWS: SOME PEOPLE HAVE HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS was a headline about as likely to make the front page of the Planet as MaryEllen’s quilt display. Still. It might not be news, but it was nice to know.

Chapter Text

Saturday was their designated fair day. Lois had been advised to wear comfortable shoes and load up on sunscreen. Clark went to bed really early the night before, prompting Lois to follow suit. Mr. and Mrs. Kent stayed up for a while and although she was sure they wouldn’t actively try to get rid of her, she still felt weird hanging out with Clark’s parents without him. So off to bed she went.

Lois’s body never wanted to settle down earlier than eleven at night, so she remained awake for hours doomscrolling on her phone. Some of that time was taken up with watching a blurry live feed filmed from an airport departure gate, being blasted out on the social media channels of all the major television news networks. A commercial airliner lost contact with air traffic control when landing, but luckily Superman was able to swoop in and avert a disaster. 

The video quality was shit, but Lois watched in morbid fascination as the passengers slid down an inflatable slide to safety. Remembering that she had to be on a plane in a few days sent a lance of panic through her guts. Yeah, statistically, air travel was still the safest way to get around, but when things went wrong, they could go wrong. On their flight to Kansas, Lois and Clark were seated in the emergency exit row and although Clark intently listened and nodded along to the extra instructions the flight attendant gave them, Lois couldn’t help wondering what the fuck they were supposed to do if something went catastrophically wrong with the flight.

Pray that Superman was in the area, she supposed. As was typical, he stuck around long enough to fly some of the passengers who couldn’t use the exit slide down to the runway, but left as soon as emergency personnel were on the scene. Lois paused the feed and read the comments which were a mix of awe for Superman and well-wishes for the passengers he saved. There would probably be an article in the Planet about it in the morning edition. For the first time since she’d gone on vacation, Lois was grateful Perry wasn’t blowing up her inbox.

Some reporters loved the Superman beat, but Lois wasn’t one of them anymore. Sometimes she regretted going so hard on the mystery man coverage in the beginning. Nowadays, any mention of Superman in an article distracted readers from focusing on the important part of the story (why the hell had a big commercial airliner lost contact with a major airport??) and the man (or android, the jury was still out on exactly what he was) didn’t make for good copy. 

Earlier, Lois reflected that Mr. Kent was a strong, silent type. Well, Superman was all that, but on steroids. He hardly ever spoke more than a sentence or two and it was all pat phrases, ‘I’m happy to help,’ ‘Thankfully, I got here in time,’ ‘I’ll step back and let the EMTs do their job.’ Nothing she could use, nothing that explained who or what he was. Obviously, what he did was fantastic, miraculous even, if you were one of those religious people who thought that Superman was neither man nor android, but some kind of angel in a cape. 

Lois had been as intrigued as everyone else by Superman when he first appeared on the scene, especially when he wouldn’t fucking talk to her. She’d spend hours at work trolling all the different SuperTheory subreddits, reading up on the latest notions about his origins and purpose, but her interest fizzled out after a while (especially when he wouldn’t fucking talk to her ). She couldn’t even get herself all riled up like the conspiracy theorists who made hours-long YouTube videos about how Superman was clearly created by some scientist funded by dark money to lull humanity into…something? They were never clear about what his nefarious purpose was, exactly, just that no one could possibly want to do good for the sake of doing good. Either he was extremely well-funded by some tech billionaire or the Superman persona was an intentional misdirect, covering up a darker purpose.

As far as Lois could tell, in her research and infrequent contact with Superman in person, there was nothing else going on under the surface. His little 'S' logo didn't stand for the brand of any Fortune500 company. He didn’t self-aggrandize, he didn’t seek glory, he didn’t even interfere with first responders (really, he was the ultimate first responder). He swooped out of the sky, saved people from disasters (natural and man-made), then swooped out. She lost interest in the story because she came to the conclusion that there was no meat to it. Superman was…helpful. Nice enough. A little boring. But hey, even Lois wasn’t such a cynic that she couldn’t recognize that boring was heaps better an outcome than tragic. 

PeteRoss seemed to be a fan. His comment under the livestream was pulled to the top of her feed.

arollingstone_gathersnoross: THANKS SUPERMAN!!! 

Clark was apparently up doomscrolling too, since sec_kent_breakfast liked Pete’s comment. TorchyLane liked it too, after a second; just because she wasn’t champing at the bit to be reporting on Superman didn’t mean she wasn’t grateful for the big blue Boy Scout. 

A few minutes later she heard Clark and his mom in the hallway outside her room - he must have startled her on the way to the bathroom because Mrs. Kent gave a little yelp.

“Sorry!” Clark exclaimed. Then, mindful that people might be sleeping, lowered his voice to a whisper that was still audible through the door. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” his mom replied with a relieved titter of laughter. “You didn’t change up?” 

“I forgot about - I wasn’t thinking,” Clark replied in such a low and conspiratorial tone that Lois sat straight up in bed, clasping a hand over her mouth.

This - this was why she only used the bathroom when she was positive she was alone upstairs. Because what if Clark slept in the buff? Or in nothing but a pair of worn-out tighty-whiteys? An embarrassing run-in with his mother was one thing, that woman changed his diapers, but Lois was his co-worker. She had enough faith in herself to know that she’d get over it, but Clark was (as she had established) a goober who would probably never be able to look her in the eyes ever again out of pure shame. Better to avoid the whole thing and just stay in her room with the door locked until morning. 

“No matter, it’s just like seeing Santa Claus,” Mrs. Kent replied, with a note of wry humor in her voice which told Lois that, whatever state Clark was in, was objectively embarrassing. “Everything good?”

“Everything’s good,” Clark confirmed in a murmur. 

“Good,” Mrs. Kent said softly. There was the quiet smacking noise of a kiss being given. “‘Night, baby, get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

“‘Night, Mama.”

Lois settled back down into bed with a tiny frown on her face. The Kents were an affectionate family, which didn’t bother her, but it did rewrite some of what she knew about Clark. Or, rather, what she thought she knew about Clark.

Aside from a handshake upon meeting and the kind of incidental contact that was unavoidable between colleagues and casual friends. Lois thought Clark must be her kind of person - namely, Not A Hugger. Rather, Metropolis!Clark was not a hugger, but Smallville!Clark was. He just didn’t hug her. 

Which was fine! Well, sure, his mother had hugged her (after asking permission) and Lana had hugged her (without asking for permission) and she had hugged Lana (without asking for permission). She and Clark just had a different dynamic. A no-touching dynamic. Months ago, when she was first feeling him out, sitting on opposite sides of the couch in her apartment only added to her conviction that he was a Genuinely Nice Guy. Tonight, sitting on opposite sides of the Kents’ sectional with an Otis-sized gap between them (a gap which Otis himself filled), it made her feel like she was an outsider in his life. 

You’re being weird, Lois told herself sternly. You’re being needy. Stop it.  

She knew she gave off a fairly prickly vibe, it was as much a genuine expression of who she was as it was a carefully cultivated presentation of who she wanted people to think she was. Sometimes she overdid it - like when she snapped at Clark without meaning to at the cafe on the way to Smallville. It was not surprising that most people didn’t approach her with outstretched arms. Hell, most of the time, it was the last thing she wanted people to approach her with. 

But Clark wasn’t people. Clark was Clark. A guy she thought she knew pretty well, well enough to accept an invite to bunk at his childhood home for a week. A guy she was discovering that she didn’t know as well as she thought. A guy she...sort of wanted a hug from.

You’re just thirsty because of THE T-SHIRT, she tried to convince herself. Stop objectifying Clark and go to sleep.

Lois put her phone on the nightstand to charge, laying back down with a frustrated sigh. All was quiet in the Kent household, apart from the chirping of insects outside the windows. She should sleep - As Mrs. Kent said, it would be a big day the next day.

They left early, but not that early; Mr. Kent had chores to attend to before they could get on the road. A caravan was assembling at the Kent farm, the road outside the house slowly filling up with cars. The Ross family was a large crew, as Mrs. Kent told her the day before. Pete was the second of five siblings, the rest were all girls, ranging in age from thirty to ten. His older sister Maureen was married with children of her own, the eldest of whom was six, and the youngest of whom was two, a curly-haired moppet named Maisie. 

True to form, Lois was not super comfortable around all the kids, who were extremely loud, extremely excited, and extremely interested in who she was.

“Is this your girlfriend, Clark?” one of Pete’s sisters, a tween named Cassie, asked him teasingly.

“Sure,” Clark replied easily, and Lois rounded on him, not eager to be a punchline in whatever joke he was about to tell, when he smoothly added, “she’s a girl, she’s my friend. That’s a girlfriend, right?”

Cassie rolled her eyes. “You’re such a freaking dork, Clark.”

“Cassidy Ross!” Mrs. Ross chided her. “Language!”

“I said freaking, Mom!”

“She did say ‘freaking,’ Auntie Becks!” Clark called out helpfully.

“Yeah, she could’ve said the eff word,” Maureen’s eldest son, Franklin, pointed out. “That would’ve been way worse.” 

“Oh yeah?” Pete asked his nephew, with a wry smile on his face. “What’s the eff word, Frankie?”

All hell broke loose among the assembled Rosses when little Frankie actually said ‘fuck,’ with no attempt at censorship. Clearly Pete hadn’t been expecting it because he doubled over with laughter, while Maureen loudly explained to Frankie (over her mother’s horrified questions about where he heard that word), that the eff word was not an okay word for children to say.

Missy, the ten-year-old, raised her hand and inquired, very seriously, when one was legally permitted to say the word in the state of Kansas. 

“Is it when you’re old enough to drive?” she asked flatly. “Or vote?”

It was all fairly whiplash-inducing for Lois, the quiet amusement of the Kents vs. the raucous personality clashes of the extended Ross family. Then Lana turned up and commanded the attention of everyone in the yard.

She was in full ‘60s Country Barbie pin-up mode. Her makeup was flawless, she was wearing a gingham halter top, Daisy Dukes and the teal cowboy boots Lois noticed when she first met her. She had big plastic daisy earrings dangling down from her earlobes and her hair was teased to high heaven, held away from her face with a headband that matched her top. Her purse was a woven straw bag, designed to look like a basket of flowers.

Pete and Clark noticed her as soon as Lois did and they both had very different reactions. Pete bounded over to her, holding out a menacing finger toward her hair and asked if it would deflate if he poked it. Clark folded his arms and frowned.

“You said you were taking a break from content this week,” he said, a hint of a frustrated whine in his voice.

“Just a few stills!” she insisted. “I’m not vlogging, I just want to take some quick snaps when we first get there, before I sweat all the product out of my hair.”

She skipped over to Clark and flashed a thousand-watt smile up at him. 

“How could I not when my favorite photographer is in town?” she asked, clasping her hands in front of her in an imploring manner. “Please? If you take the pictures, it’ll go quick!”

“I could take the pictures,” Pete offered, smirking.

Lana didn’t spare him a glance when she responded to his offer.

“If you take the pictures, I’ll look like shit,” she declared matter-of-factly as Mrs. Ross clamped her hands over Frankie’s ears while Maureen explained to her mother that she didn’t care whether her son heard swear words as long as he didn’t repeat them. “Please?”

Clark continued to frown down at Lana, but Lois could see that he was wilting. Apparently ‘please’ really was a magic word.

“No vlogging?” he asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

“No vlogging,” Lana confirmed. “I’ll be present, in the moment, fully immersed in the experience. No vlogging, no taking off. Deal?”

She held out her right hand in what appeared, at first, to be the ASL letter ‘y,’ until Clark linked their little fingers and Lois realized they were making a pinkie promise. 

“Deal,” he agreed. 

The pinkie promise was slightly more elaborate than Lois was used to - they raised and lowered their hands once before they each kissed their own thumbs and solemnly intoned, ‘Quack,’ at each other before they unlinked their fingers. It was all very innocent and friend-coded, putting a dent into Lois's suspicions that Lana and Clark had a Will They/Won't They dynamic going on. 

Once that was out of the way, the group started to divide up into a carpool caravan. Evidently parking was at a premium at the fair and they wanted to take as few vehicles as possible, a daunting task given the number of car seats the extended Ross family required.

“I can ride in the bed,” Clark offered when the car math wasn’t mathing. “It’s not that long a drive.”

Lana could not ride in the bed of the truck (citing hair concerns). Instead, Lois volunteered to give up an actual seat. It had been a while since she’d ridden in the bed of a truck and she had nostalgic memories of having done so when out trick-or-treating as a child, clambering in and out at the top of every block. The neighborhood her family lived in that year was swanky and gave out full sized bars.

With two adults no longer sitting legally inside the cars, that freed up enough space for all the kids, parents of said kids, and those who were born during the Carter administration to ride safely to their destination. 

Mr. Kent ducked into the house to grab a blanket to spread over the floor to make the ride a little bit more comfortable for them. Lois clambered into the truck on her own, followed shortly by Clark. The truck dipped and swayed a little bit under his weight. Lois was deeply shocked when he sat right next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders as casually and easily as if they did this all the time and Lois hadn’t been up half the night fretting about how many degrees of friendship separated her from the Pete and Lana category in Clark’s life and if it could be measured in hugs.

Not that this was a hug, exactly. A side-hug, if anything. Practically speaking, Clark was acting as a seatbelt.

“It’s a little bumpy,” he said, by way of explanation. With a grin he added, “I don’t want you to bounce out.”

“You know,” Lois replied, like a total psychopath, “I’ve heard the wonderful thing about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things.”

Clark snorted and nodded, “Yeah, Wikipedia told me their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs.” 

“They’re bouncy, trouncey, ouncey, pouncey, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun,” Lois continued, with the seriousness of a television news anchor announcing a national day of mourning.

“But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers,” Clark concluded, “is - and you can quote me on this - I’m the only one.”

“You’re the only one?” Lois asked, eyebrows rising in feigned surprise as Mr. Kent started the truck up and they started their (admittedly bouncy) trip down the road.

“I'm the only one,” Clark replied. Then, wildly, continued, “Tiggers are cuddly fellows, Tiggers are marvelous chaps…”

He paused like he expected her to keep going, but Lois merely looked up at him, nose scrunching in confusion.

“Are you riffing?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. "Is this your G-rated, E for Everyone example of freestyling?"

“No!” Clark exclaimed. “I’m doing a bit! We’re doing a bit, we’re doing the song!” 

“I finished the song,” Lois replied, definitively, trying to ignore how…very nice it felt to have Clark’s arm around her. He was wearing a button-down over his t-shirt, so it didn’t provoke a response from her that included words Mrs. Ross would not like to be used in front of the children. Instead it was…cuddly. As he said. 

“You did not,” Clark insisted. “There’s more song. There’s more to the song, there’s, like, two more verses.”

“There’s not,” Lois shook her head, but she was unable to come up with a more cogent argument other than ‘nuh-uh’ since Clark leaned more heavily on her so he could get his phone out of his pocket in order to play the full version of “The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers” for her listening benefit.

She was forced to eat her words; the song was longer than she remembered it being. 

“Say it,” Clark insisted, grinning down at her with his doofiest goober smile. “Go on. I know you hate it. But you’ve gotta say it.”

Lois glared up at him with a slightly (but only slightly) affected intensity. 

“You were right,” she muttered quietly, as though a lack of volume rendered the statement less true. Then added, with a mildly wicked grin, “It’s fine, I can get over not having memorized all the words to every single Disney song, you weirdo.”

“I don’t have the words to every song memorized,” Clark said, not denying the weirdo allegations. He added, “Just…you know, enough. So that my life is full of meaning and happiness and not sorrow and despair.”

“Give me your phone,” Lois demanded. 

Clark handed it to her without question and she spent the rest of the ride to the fairgrounds, opening up online quiz after online quiz with titles like, ‘Only the Most Diehard Disney Fan Will Guess The Movie from These Lyrics,’ and ‘If You Know The Lyrics to These Obscure Disney Songs, We’re Begging You to Get Out of the House.’

Clark got a perfect score on all of them. Like a weirdo. A goober. A doofus. A freaking dork, to quote Cassie. Who just so happened to have a large, strong arm, that felt fantastic pinning Lois to his side until they parked and exited the truck to head into the fair.

Chapter Text

When Lois heard the words 'county fair' what she imagined was 'parking lot carnival,' only in a field. A few rinky-dink amusement park rides set up near a central stand selling fried dough with maybe a tiny paddock where kids could look at a tired old pony.

Once again, she was proved wrong (which, as Clark correctly noted, was a sensation she hated). The set-up was huge, so big that people were distributing maps at the entrance. There was a carnival area - Lois could see a Ferris Wheel from the parking lot - but there was so much more. An entire neighborhood of snack stands and food trucks, multiple tents where blue ribbons would be awarded for everything from wood carving to pie-making, and an entire arena, the size of a football field, for livestock demonstrations and auctions.

“I could buy a horse?” Lois asked, looking up at Clark with a gleam in her eye that bespoke mania.

Clark recognized the danger and hesitated before he responded.

“If we ignore all of the greater logistical implications and ethics of taking care of a horse in your Metropolis apartment, then, yes, theoretically,” he replied cautiously. “You can buy a horse.”

A quick Google search dashed her dreams. Lois didn’t have an exact number in her head for what she thought a horse would cost, but her credit card limit would not support a $5,000+ purchase. Lois scanned the map/brochure, looking for other things to do while Lana stole Clark away to act as her photographer. 

Lois wasn’t much of a visual arts person, but she was peripherally aware that Clark liked taking pictures. He and Jimmy would nerd out about different kinds of camera lenses while Lois relegated their conversation to background noise and tuned them out. Despite his earlier protestations, Clark really threw himself into the photoshoot, getting the angles, informing Lana when he was looking directly up her nose and advising her to tilt her chin down.

PeteRoss was less helpful. He shouted over Clark's directions, using a mishmash of America’s Next Top Model catchphrases. 

“YOU WANNA BE ON TOP? BE LIKE A BROKEN DOWN DOLL. DON’T LOSE YOUR NECK. SMIZE! REMEMBER, IT’S NOT A SQUINT, IT’S AN INTENSITY. I SAID MIA FARROW IN ROSEMARY'S BABY.” 

Lana smiled so sweetly that it looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Then she very deliberately flipped Pete off.

“I got it!” Clark declared. He got up and handed Lana’s phone back to her. “That’s the shot. Can we go have fun now?”

Lana scrolled the photos, brow furrowed critically. Already the wind was blowing fly-aways out of her bouffant. After a minute she looked up at Clark with a bright smile. 

“Perfect, thank you!” she said, reaching up to give him a one-armed hug, the other hand still holding her phone. “Food first? Or rides?”

The group consulted with one another and quickly determined that the wisest course of action would be to split up, for a little while, at least. Gen Xers eschewed thrills of the rides in favor of looking at the 4H kids’ projects while everyone Millennial and below decided to go purchase ride tickets, with promises to reconvene at the food booths in an hour or two. 

Before their paths diverged, they walked through a little alley of sponsor and community partner booths and tables. As Lois glanced around at her fellow fair-goers, she noticed that some of her preconceptions about residents of the Bible Belt weren’t as off-base as her experiences in Smallville led her to believe. When she and Clark walked up and down Main St. the day before, she hadn't noticed any overtly political signs or statements. Today, she saw a profusion of shirts and hats with slogans that made her feel uneasy - specifically, a lot of awkwardly worded threats about what the wearer might do if they felt their Second Amendment rights were being infringed upon, in addition to pithy phrases which implied they loved Jesus and hated everyone else. Sometimes, both sentiments were expressed by the same garment.

Lois was less nervous in the presence of an actual gun than she was in the midst of a group of people whose main personality trait was letting everyone else know how much they loved guns. Like, her dad oversaw the use of heavy artillery, lovingly maintained a collection of antique weaponry, and even he didn’t have a shirt about how no one better mess with his football or his firearms. (Though, to be honest, Sam Lane was more of a basketball guy than anything else.)

It wasn’t every person they passed, but the sudden onslaught of people wearing t-shirts, bandanas and tube tops that clearly violated Flag Code after a few days of thinking she was in a magical bubble of toleration (and living full time in almost parodically liberal Metropolis) threw her for a loop. 

“Mama Kent!”

The greeting came from a person who was staffing a table representing the local chapter of a Kansas equity group. They got up from their camp chair, face lighting up when they saw everyone.

“Papa Kent!” they cried out, just as enthusiastically. “Clark Kent! All the Kents! Also assorted Rosses, hello!”

“Hey, Gray!” Mrs. Kent greeted them warmly and they hugged.

Gray (full name - Grayson Rutledge) looked to be in their early twenties and was introduced as one of Mrs. Kent’s former students - mostly for Lois’s benefit as everyone else seemed to know them already. It turned out they’d overlapped very slightly with the Ross's middle child, Quinn, at Smallville High and everyone engaged in general chit-chat about how college was going (directed at Gray) and plans for college (directed at Quinn). 

Gray gushed to the other booth staffer about how cool “Mama” Kent was and how she was the main reason they hadn’t dropped out of high school. Mrs. Kent reacted a lot like Clark had when Mr. Kent sang his praises at the dairy - she didn’t blush, but she did bring her hands up to her forehead as though shielding herself from the compliments. The apple really didn’t fall far from the tree in that family.

“You were the one who got up and came to class every day,” Mrs. Kent insisted, throwing all the credit for Gray's diploma back on them. “I just try to make things nice for you kids while you’re in school.”

“Stop it, you’re a lifeline,” Gray declared. “I volunteered at the Y last year doing art classes for kids, even though I hate kids - um, no offense little Rosses - just because I thought, hey, maybe I can be someone’s Mama Kent!”

“You all want some stickers?” Gray’s fellow volunteer asked, trying to distract the younger members of the Ross family from Gray’s ‘no offense, but I hate children’ slip of the tongue. 

The stickers were pretty rad and everyone wound up taking one. Some of the sentiments expressed were earnest and mushy (Mrs. Ross chose one with the words ‘YOU ARE LOVED’ inside a rainbow heart) and others were cheekier (Lana opted for ‘A Day Without Lesbians Is Like A Day Without Sunshine’). Lois’s personal favorite was ‘Queer as’ followed by a picture of a duck illustrated with the Progress Pride flag colors (Mrs. Kent snatched that one up and pocketed it for future use). 

“What are the chances we’re going full P!nk?” Lois muttered to Clark as she peeled the backing off her sticker. “Like, da-na-na-na-na-na, we're gonna start a fight.” 

She was only half kidding and 1000% prepared to throw hands if anyone took issue with her ‘Trans Rights Are Human Rights’ sticker. It was extremely cute and written in bubble letters, which was her preferred font for handwritten greeting cards. 

Clark sighed and patted his sticker to make sure it was fully affixed to his shirt. He’d chosen one that was extreme on-brand for the region: ‘Y’all means ALL’ in rainbow colors.

“We live here too,” he said simply. “I try not to be so macho it’s disgusting - ”

“Ooh, Murderbot, deep cut.”

“But if people get rude,” he continued. “I can do the squared-shoulder Big Guy Energy thing. Usually staves off trouble.”

“Using the power of patriarchal machismo for good,” Lois mused, tapping her chin thoughtfully. After a second she nodded approvingly. “I’ll allow it.”

Clark smiled his patented goofy grin and, despite being, as he mentioned, and Lois frequently observed A Certified Big Guy, he looked about as intimidating as a loaf of milk bread. Soft. Approachable. Squishy. Delicious. 

Scratch the last one, Lane. He’s not even wearing THE T-SHIRT.

They bid farewell to Gray, though Mrs. Kent urged them to stop by the farm that night since the Kents were hosting a post-fair fire pit. They eagerly agreed and, freshly stickered and ready to take on the day, the group went deeper into the fairground.

Walking into the rides section, Lois was awash in a sense of nostalgic familiarity. She loved a cheesy carnival, the more rickety and dangerous-looking the better, and she was willing to spend tens of dollars to win shitty prizes. Local amusement parks and pop-up carnivals were her social bread and butter as a child when they moved to a new city. It was an easy in with people, sharing near-death experiences, eating crap, and playing dumb games as a pre-packaged bonding experience. 

The promise of a fair was most of the reason why Lois hadn’t backed out and feigned being cough-cough sick when she realized Clark wasn’t kidding about their trip (also she’d already paid for the flight). She figured that if things were super awkward for the first couple of days, they’d smooth out by the time they hit up a carnival. Good, bad, and ugly, outings like that united disparate people into actual social groups, if only temporarily. If conversation with Clark’s family and friends was stilted or non-existent, once they got to the fair they could talk about the fair. And then when the fair was over, they could talk about what happened at the fair.

Thankfully, things hadn’t turned out like that, but that just meant this outing would be the cherry on top of the cake, rather than the whole slice. Really, it was remarkable how (relatively) easy things had gone with Clark’s friends and family. They were all really friendly and really nice to her, acting like it was perfectly natural that Lois would be joining them on their yearly traditions, rather than being a strange imposition.

Lana in particular seemed eager to make sure Lois was included. She sidled up to her and lightly bumped her on the shoulder. 

“Are you up for a romantic spin on the Ferris Wheel?” Lana asked, grinning down at Lois. Then she bit her lip in a manner that read as cutesy rather than nervous. That action, combined with the choice of sticker resulted in a certified Eureka! moment for Lois.

Abruptly, all of Lois’s investigation in the Will They or Won’t They of Clark and Lana ended firmly on They Won’t. Really, Lana Instagram handle should have been the first clue that her feelings toward Clark were purely platonic…and that her eager overtures of friendship toward Lois may have actually been flirtation rather than a master plan to have a cliche girl fight. Whoops. 

Lois could pivot though! She hated being wrong, but she wasn’t such an asshole that she couldn’t admit it (if only to herself). Besides, she prided herself on being adaptable to almost every situation. As such, Lois linked arms with Lana and smiled up at her in what she hoped was a thoroughly charming way. 

“Hell yeah!” Lois agreed - then forgot all about flirting and Ferris Wheels when her eyes caught sight of a massive wave swing that not only rose dozens of feet into the air, but also tilted. The whole thing was spindly and looked like it was moving way too fast. Lois practically salivated at the sight of it. 

Lana followed her line of vision and laughed out loud, grabbing hold of Lois’s hand and literally skipping off toward the massive metal structure. Lois matched her, pace for pace and skip for skip, though it did dampen the flirty feelings, at least on Lois’s end. She hadn’t really engaged in this level of silly antics with anyone other than Lucy, not in years. 

Lucy and the kids would probably like this, Lois reflected, feeling a little more sympathy for her sister’s perspective than she had before. If photos from the day wound up online and Lucy saw them, she’d probably be pissed and she had a right to be. It could be considered a little fucked up that the first time Lois spent a day at a fair with a bunch of children, they were some strangers’ kids and not her own niblings.

Speaking of the kids, the younger Rosses ran around Lana and Lois, dragging little Frankie along with them. Clark was hot on their heels, reminding them to make sure Frankie was tall enough to ride. 

Behind them, Maureen made a frustrated noise.

“Have fun,” she said, rolling her eyes and hefting Maisie up onto her hip. “The joys of parenting.”

“I can hold her for the first ride,” her husband Rafi offered. “Then we can switch.” 

Clark turned around, hands already outstretched.

“I’ll take her,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the ride that captivated the group’s collective attention. “You two go together, no way I’m riding that thing.”

“The seats are too narrow for his child-bearing hips,” Pete explained, patting Clark on the back. “Tough luck pal.”

Although Lois doubted Clark would be barred from the ride, given the fact that the sleepy-looking teenager staffing the swings appeared to be letting people in based on vibes, she supposed he was being responsible. If the manufacturing company had an upper height or weight limit for the ride, he probably surpassed both.

“Are you sure?” Maureen asked, entirely for the sake of politeness; she was already sliding the diaper backpack she was carrying off of one shoulder.  

“Oh yeah,” Clark nodded vigorously. “It looks insane, I’m completely happy keeping both feet on the ground. You all do the crazy stuff, I’ll put Maisie on the kiddie rides, text me when you’re done, I’ll come find you.”

That was all the reassurance Maureen needed. After Clark promised her and Rafi that he’d take lots of pictures, she handed him the diaper bag and then, once he had that secured over his shoulders, her child.

“Go see Uncle Clark, Maze,” she encouraged her daughter. And what happened next made Lois briefly doubt everything she’d ever known to be true about herself. 

As established, Lois did not actively seek out the company of children, nor did she want to be in possession of any child, whether it was biologically hers or otherwise. If she was being super honest with herself, the rift between her and Lucy might have become impassable when Lucy asked if she would be willing to be listed as the guardian of her kids, in case anything happened. Lois said no, without even pretending to pause to think about it. That was how absolutely certain she was that she didn’t want the remotest possibility of parenthood floating in her orbit. 

However. When Clark smiled and murmured, “Come here, darlin’,” to Maisie, who half-fell of her mother’s arms reaching for him, Lois’s lizard hind-brain kicked into high gear and tried to convince her that she’d never seen anything hotter in her life than Clark Kent holding a toddler.

Luckily, Lois’s sophisticated human fore-brain told her lizard self to take a hike while she hopped onto the swings and took a seat between Lana and Pete, the rush of adrenaline and the sensation of wind in her ears an excellent distraction for her misfiring hormones. 

After they got off the Spinning Swings of Death, the group immediately sought out other stomach-churning monstrosities in which to risk their lives. There was a tilt-a-whirl, a scrambler, a pendulum swing shaped like a rocket ship, and a caterpillar ride which didn’t look like much from the outside, but rattled its riders so hard that Lois ran her tongue over her teeth when it was over to make sure her fillings hadn’t been shaken out.

By the time they rode everything, the whole party was either green around the gills or red in the face from laughing so much. Lana’s hair was a total wreck and her mascara was smudged, but she didn’t check her makeup on her phone screen or attempt to tame her hair back into its original style. As she promised Clark, she was totally in the moment, usually leading the charge to the next adventure, which included a trip into a haunted funhouse walk-through near the entrance to the carnival area, which ultimately proved Lois’s earlier theory about bonding completely correct.

Lana chickened out about going first, which resulted in Lois leading the pack while Lana gripped the back of her shirt and buried her face between Lois’s shoulder blades. It was like being in charge of a giggly conga line of fright, there were no human scare actors, but instead either sensors or unseen buttons in the floor triggered various noises, blasts of air, and neon-painted mannequin heads to pop out along the route. They all screamed and laughed - Lois even had a moment with Pete’s youngest sister where she personally encouraged Missy to keep going, when the girl stood stock-still, hands over her eyes, refusing to move forward or backwards.

Lois slung an arm around the kid’s shoulders, once again reminded of Lucy. Her sister’s FOMO often came into conflict with the fact that she was a big scaredy-cat who thought that Casper was the height of horror. Many times, Lois had to lead Lucy bodily through a haunted house that she insisted on walking through, swearing she’d be fine this time. She never was.

“You’re good!” Lois told Missy. “Just look down, there’s nothing scary on the ground.”

Despite the fact that Lois was basically a total stranger, Missy hugged her around the waist and buried her face in Lois’s shoulder, resulting in Lois having to basically shuffle-drag her to the safety of the exit. 

Eat your heart out, Superman, Lois thought when Missy was blinking in the light of day, laughing with her sisters about how totally lame the funhouse was. Who’s the hero now?

The parents found the group shortly thereafter and were treated to a thorough recounting of all their adventures thus far. Lois’s inclusion in the stories, as both narrator and protagonist lit up the dopamine receptors in her brain. Once again, her most primeval self came to the fore, suffusing her with the satisfaction that came with being part of a social group. Sure, she’d be gone on Wednesday and none of these people would think twice about her again, but it was nice while it lasted.  

“Does Clark have the baby?” Mrs. Ross asked, craning her neck and looking around for any sign of their missing comrades.

“Yeah,” Frankie nodded. “He was too scared to go on the rides and Maisie’s too little. Uncle Pete was supposed to text him, but he didn’t.”

“Really, little man?” Pete asked, glowering down at his nephew. “You’ve gotta tell on me every time?

“Text him now, Pete,” Mr. Ross ordered his son. “Tell Chicken to come find us, we’re hungry.

“Whoa, harsh,” Lois laughed. Like, sure, Clark didn’t want to go on the thrill rides, but calling him a chicken seemed a little much - especially when Mr. Ross hadn’t ridden any of those rides either.

“Oh, no!” Maureen raised her hand with a smile, like she was warding off Lois’s uncharitable interpretation of her father’s words. “It’s not - it’s a nickname. When Pete was little he didn’t really do the letter r.” 

“Every time he tried to say ‘Clark,’ it came out more like ‘Cluck,’” Mrs. Kent recalled with a smile. “It was cute.”

“‘Chicken’ sort of evolved from there,” Pete smirked. “Hardly anybody calls him that, though.”

“Ha, yeah, just your entire extended family,” Lana pointed out.

“And the Kearnses,” Cassie added.

“I do it too, from time to time,” Mr. Kent admitted with a shrug. He raised his head and waved at someone behind Lois. “Hey there Chicken, we were just talking about you.”

Lois turned around to see Clark and Maisie coming toward them, Maisie still seated comfortably in the crook of Clark’s arm, leaning her head on his shoulder and sucking her thumb.

“Yeah,” Clark replied to his dad, while looking at Lois with a chagrined smile. “I heard you recounting my lore.”

The smile Lois shot him in return was deeply sinister. This was good, this was a scoop. The next time Clark tried to get her to admit out loud that she was wrong about something, she would have ‘Chicken’ in her arsenal to shut him up.

“I’m saving this if I ever need to blackmail you,” Lois informed him seriously. Vengeful she might be, but she tried to be fair, especially with friends. 

“I’d expect nothing less,” he replied, inclining his head and gracefully accepting the defeat that was his due. 

“Alright, Maisie, let’s go - ” Maureen held her arms out to take her daughter back, but Maisie shook her head, wrapping both her tiny arms around Clark’s neck and hiding her face in his collar.

“Ha!” Clark laughed in triumph. “I win!”

“Wow!” Maureen replied, dropping her arms and feigning offense. “Okay, I see how it is. Let me know when you get sick of her, Clark.”

“Oh, never,” Clark insisted, giving Maisie a quick kiss on the side of her head. “We’re best friends for life, right Maisie-girl?” 

Maisie lifted her head and smiled, chubby cheeks dimpling. Clark swung her up onto his shoulders and the group made their way over to the concessions, Pete’s younger sisters catching Clark up on everything he missed while he was babysitting.

“What’d you guys do?” Lois asked Clark when the kids turned their attention to their parents, each wanting to go in a different direction simultaneously. Maisie seemed content perched on Clark’s shoulders and Lois was impressed with Clark for not wincing as Maisie fisted her free hand pretty hard in his hair to maintain her balance. 

“Oh, lots of stuff,” he said, taking out his phone to scroll through pictures for Lois. “Maisie went on a boat and a train - ”

“A choo-choo train,” Maisie interjected, taking her thumb out of her mouth only long enough to say that before she popped it back in.

“Right, a choo-choo train, thanks Maze,” he corrected himself. “We rode the carousel. Then we went to the petting zoo and made friends with a goat.”

All of this was borne out in the photographic evidence on Clark’s phone. There were a bunch of pictures and videos of Maisie on a variety of child-size rides (which Clark dutifully texted to her parents), as well as a few selfies of the two of them cheesing for the camera. There was even a picture of the goat. 

Maisie allowed herself to be relinquished when her dad offered her French fries. A moment of reckoning had come for Lois too: PeteRoss had acquired deep-fried butter on a stick.  

It looked like a corn dog, only with powdered sugar and a drizzle of honey. Naturally, Lois had questions: Is this a sweet treat? Is this a savory treat? How are you supposed to eat it? Was she expected to consume the entire thing? Where was the butter?

The answers, given by Clark, Pete, and Lana all talking over each other were: Yes. No. Tear it apart with a fork (if directly bitten into you might get second degree burns from molten hot butter in your mouth). They were going to share it. The butter had mostly become one with the batter.

“It’s more like funnel cake than anything else,” Clark explained. “Just extra greasy.”

With that appetizing description, Lois dug a plastic fork into the end of the log of batter (melted butter oozed out of the puncture marks like blood from a wound) and took a bite.

It was…fine? It was deep-fried dough, it wasn’t bad, but it didn’t have any flavor other than being vaguely sweet and very greasy. 

Lana’s phone made its second appearance of the day, pointed directly at Lois. 

“Okay, folks, time for baby’s first fried butter,” she announced to her...followers? Herself? Lois had a sneaking suspicion she was going to wind up on YouTube. “What do you think, Lois?”

“It’s not really butter,” Lois said, speaking more to Lana than to her phone. For someone who prided herself on her ability to churn out a nine inch story on the fly, she was struggling to come up with an influencer-worthy description. “It’s edible. I’m underwhelmed.”

“That’s the exact right reaction to eating deep-fried butter,” Pete declared, plucking the fork out of Lois’s hand and taking his own bite (much larger than hers had been). By the time the others had their share the batter part was gone and all that remained was a puddle of melted butter, rapidly soaking into the bottom of the little paper bowl it was served in. 

There were other, better treats to be had. Lois genuinely loved the deep-fried Oreos and sampled plenty of other snacks, including corn dogs, churros, fries, kettle corn, onion rings, walking tacos, empanadas and more. Nothing went to waste; Clark gamely volunteered to finish off the last of the food no one else wanted, like a human garbage disposal. 

Lois drank plenty of water to counteract the effects of the sun and salty food, if only to prove that she was a fully functioning adult. Also, no alcohol was being served yet.

“The beer garden opens up at five, but we’ll leave before that. Shit gets sloppy after six p.m.,” Pete informed her as they wandered the fair, walking off the sleepiness that was to be expected after throwing a year's worth of fried foods at their stomachs in the space of an hour.

“In the meantime we can check out the auctions, if you want to see what that’s like - maybe buy a horse,” Clark suggested teasingly. “Oh! Or the herding dog demos, those are  - ”

He cut off abruptly, going still, a line appearing between his eyebrows. It smoothed, but his mouth turned down in a small frown.

“Um, I’m gonna…” he looked behind him - at what, Lois had no idea. “I’m just…I’ll be back. Or if not, I’ll catch up with you at the house, don’t wait for me, I’ll get a…ride.”

Pete and Lana had very different reactions to the announcement of this departure. Pete’s was altogether more chill, almost as though he’d been expecting it.

“Cool,” he nodded. “I’ll let the parents know.”

“You’re leaving?” Lana asked, aghast. “You can’t be serious - you promised!”

“Promised what?” Clark asked, momentarily stymied. Then he shook his head and started walking backwards, disappearing behind a crowd of kids in matching t-shirts, members of the same youth group. “Sorry, I’ll make it up to you.”

“What happened to both feet on the ground?” Lana demanded. But he was already gone. She rounded on Pete, radiating dismay and anger. “What the hell?” 

Pete glanced briefly at Lois, an unreadable look on his face. Lois hitched her shoulders in a shrug; she didn’t require an explanation as Lana seemed to. Not to be completely gross, but Lois figured that eating everyone’s leftovers did a number on Clark's digestive tract and he was off to deal with that. Not convenient, but what could you do?

“He had to go,” he said, finally, voice a little clipped. “It happens. Come on, let’s take a video of the dogs for him, he loves that shit.”

“Don’t take a video,” Lana insisted, shaking her head with a huff. “If he actually wanted to see them, he could have stayed.”

She stalked ahead of them. Pete looked between Lana and Lois for a sec, mouthed “SORRY,” at Lois and jogged off in pursuit of Lana. The youth group members in their bright blue t-shirts thundered past, leaving Lois surrounded by strangers. 

Well, she reflected a little sourly. That sense of belonging was nice. While it lasted. 

Which, as ever in her experience, was never long. 

Chapter Text

Okay, so Lois might have been indulging in mild melodramatics. She hadn't been abandoned like a sad kitten in a cardboard box in the rain; not even five minutes after she was separated from Pete and Lana, Mrs. Kent called to find out where she was. 

“Just making sure you didn’t wander off to buy a horse,” she said, once Lois picked her way through the gaggle of youth group kids to reunite with the main crew. No one mentioned The Case of the Missing Clark and some of Lana’s huffiness on the matter dissipated when Lois suggested taking a spin on the Ferris Wheel as their next activity.

She, Lana, and Pete all crammed into one car together, so it was a bit of a tight squeeze, made tighter by the fact that Lana decided to put her hair up in a simple ponytail to keep it out of her face, resulting in Lois and Pete engaging in feats of extremely lowkey gymnastics to dodge her elbows. After the first rotation Lana was smiling again and taking selfies which appeared to constitute a full recovery of her usual spirits. 

The Ferris Wheel was one attraction that everyone in their party agreed to ride together and, at least for Mr. and Mrs. Kent, the experience held all the promise of romance Lana alluded to earlier. Lois’s car stopped at just the right angle to catch them smooching at the top of the rotation. 

“Oh my God, they’re so fucking cute I could scream,” Lana said, raising her phone to snap a picture of the Kents, backlit by the sun. 

Lois glanced down at the screen, impressed yet again by Lana's ability to take photographs so sneakily and so well. If she wasn't an influencer, she could have been a spy. Like the stealth picture she shared of Lois on Instagram, this one was taken at just the right angle and looked like one of those stock photos that were sold inside expensive picture frames. It didn’t go in Lana’s Stories, however; she texted it directly to Mrs. Kent, whose number was saved under the contact listing ‘Mama Kent’ in her phone.

It was such a blissful, happy image that Lois's brain immediately had to ruin it by jumping to the thought that there were shitty people in the world who might not agree with Lana's assessment about the Kents cuteness. She hoped it wasn't true, but she couldn't help asking.

“People are cool with them, right?” Lois asked Lana, smoothing down the edge of her sticker, which was starting to curl up slightly from general wear and tear. “Like. In Smallville. They don't have to put up with ignorant crap?”

Lana’s expression was a little blank, like she didn’t understand the question. Her eyes followed Lois’s fidgeting and she once she understood the implication she nodded her head, slowly.

“I mean…” she sucked her teeth and tightened her grip on the lap bar. “It's complicated? But also not? Basically, people don’t tend to be overtly anything-phobic in Smallville - not because we live in a magical land without bigotry, but because it’s not a…a neighborly thing to do. And Mama and Papa Kent are basically the best neighbors ever.”

“They’re not naive, though,” Pete pointed out. With a knowing look he added to Lois, “They know who their real friends are. Like, they’ll lend a hand to anyone who needs it, but not everyone gets an invitation to the fire pit. You know what I’m saying?” 

She did know what he was saying and she was glad to hear it. The Kents had been really great to her - really great to everyone around them, from the looks of it - and they deserved to have people be great right back. Or, if they couldn't handle greatness, at least be not shitty. Up ahead, Mrs. Kent got the picture. She lifted her head from her husband’s shoulder to check her phone. A second later, the two of them turned around to smile and wave. Lois, Lana, and Pete waved back, all smiles.

“I swear, if they ever split up, I will stop believing that love is real,” Lana remarked with a sigh once the Kents were facing forward again, leaning against the metal back of the car.

“They’re never gonna split,” Pete said decisively. “Aunt Marty and Uncle Johnny are going out at the same time, like that old couple in Titanic on the bed.”

“Wow. Morbid.”

“‘Scuse you, that’s peak romance. Better than Rose letting Jack drown because she wouldn’t shift her ass on the door.”

“Jack couldn’t get onto the door, Pete! It would have put them below the water line and they both would have frozen to death.”

“There was room - ”

This had the flavor of an argument the two of them had many times, so Lois tuned Lana and Pete out, leaning on the lap bar while the car gently swayed. Above her, Mr. Kent put an arm around his wife's shoulder and Lois couldn’t deny that they were indeed cute as fuck. If Lana had posted the picture, Lois assumed that the hashtag #couplegoals would have appeared in the caption. Unrealistic goals, sure, but goals all the same.

It wasn't that Lois was a diehard pessimist, but she'd been around long enough to know that most couples were not blissfully riding through middle age on a love train the way that Mama and Papa Kent were. Leaving aside the divorce rate in the U.S., Lois knew plenty of couples that hadn’t split, but still weren’t happy together. Lucy and her husband David had Problems, but Lucy was adamant that she would never leave him because she couldn’t handle the idea of her kids having the same childhood trauma that she did.

Lois’s argument that it wouldn’t be the same childhood trauma (so long as neither David nor Lucy ghosted their kids), didn’t carry much weight for her sister. And Lucy’s subsequent accusations that Lois’s aversion to long-term relationships was a sign that their mother’s abandonment left indelible scars on her, didn’t hold much weight with Lois either. 

“Does Clark date much?” Lois asked Lana and Pete as they started making their way up to the top of the wheel. She nodded over at the Kents cuddling before they disappeared from her line of vision. “Or does he not bother because that’s too much to live up to?”

Lana’s nose wrinkled contemplatively. 

“He doesn’t date,” she said, glancing over at Pete as though for confirmation. “Much. Uh, he hasn’t brought anyone around anyway.”

“He’s been on dates,” Pete said, squinting like it was taking every last one of his brain cells to conjure up a memory of Clark on date. “In college, he went out with a few people. Nothing that stuck though - he hasn’t mentioned going out with anyone since he moved to Metropolis. Unless you know something I don’t know.”

The last was directed at Lois with a waggle of his eyebrows. Lois laughed and shook her head. If Clark had been dating anyone, he didn’t kiss and tell.

Then again, there was a lot about himself that she’d only come to know recently. And since she was pretty sure he wasn’t flying down to Kansas most weekends, that might have been a smoke screen for dating. When he told her he was going to see his parents, it was likely on some of those occasions he'd actually been out getting coffee and/or dinner with people he matched with on Bumble or Hinge or that really niche dating app for Disney Adults.

She had to bite back a smile, imagining some cringey tagline on his profile, “Are you the Minnie to my Mickey?”   Or, more appropriately, “Are you the Fozzie to my Kermit?" based on that time they took a What Muppet Are You? personality quiz together and he got Kermit. (She got Gonzo, but she thought she was more of a Rizzo.) 

In any case, Clark was probably waiting for The One. Not only was he the product of an unbroken home, he had the unicorn childhood of being raised by parents who clearly loved and liked each other. Poor guy probably thought everyone had a fated soulmate out there, just waiting to meet-cute stumble into each other’s lives. He probably wasn’t on the apps at all - no swiping right on a potential soulmate for Clark Kent. 

No siree, in all likelihood he thought he was going to meet the love of his life in a grocery store. Lois could just picture the poor guy's delusional aspirations: They’d both reach for the same lumpy organic tomato. Their hands would brush. They’d look deeply into each other’s eyes. The camera lens would go soft-focus while a string quartet played softly in the background.

Ugh, he was setting himself up for a harsh reality check one day. Luckily, Lois was all in on Team Clark and was a million percent ready and willing to beat the living daylights out of anyone who broke her buddy’s heart, whether or not he deserved to have his heart broken for being a disgustingly romantic dumb-dumb. 

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. They stopped by the auctions (where an actual auctioneer in a cowboy hat spoke really, really fast, which Lois thought was something made up for movies). They watched a series of very cute dogs chase some extremely exhausted sheep around a field, then Maisie had a meltdown caused by a combination of a missed nap, too much sun, and way too much sugar, so they decided to pack it in and head back to the Kents' to prep for the fire pit.

Lois rode back inside Mr. Kent’s truck this time, squeezed in the back between Mrs. Ross and Mrs. Kent. Inside the truck, she was treated to a little backstory on both couples.

Mr. Kent and Mr. Ross had been friends since childhood - they were each raised on the neighboring farms they now ran. Mr. and Mrs. Ross started dating in high school and tied the knot shortly thereafter (reading between the lines, it sounded like Mrs. Ross was pregnant at the wedding). Mr. Kent met Mrs. Kent outside of Smallville; he moved away after graduation so he could have better access to gender-affirming care. They met through roller derby, because of course they did.  

“I still remember the first time I heard about her,” Mr. Ross recalled with a grin. “You were smitten, man. It's the crack of dawn and I’m on the line, thinking, ‘This guy’s calling me from a pay phone to talk about some girl? Shit, must be serious.’ Come to find out, they’d just met.” 

“It was our first time going out,” Mr. Kent corrected the record. “I’d known her for a while, I was a ref at her games. She played dirty.”

“It was strategic!” Mrs. Kent insisted, leaning forward in her seat so she could make eye contact with her husband in the rearview mirror. “Fouls were the only way I could get you to talk to me.”

Mr. Kent raised his eyes to meet hers, shooting his wife a smile. “I was shy.”

“Shy, bullshit,” Mrs. Kent rolled her eyes. "You were just playing hard to get. Joey agrees with me."

“I'm Switzerland,” Mr. Ross replied diplomatically. “But I can tell you, Johnny talked to me more on the phone that night than he ever had in our entire lives. Must’ve emptied a whole roll of quarters telling me all about this artist girl, Marty. Said they went to a movie and then stayed out all night, walking from one end of the city to the other. Mind, I had Becks in my ear, Maureen on her hip, grilling me for information, so I only got half of what he said.”

“I’m basically Jonathan’s sister-in-law,” Mrs. Ross declared. “I had a right to know exactly what this city-girl’s intentions were with my husband's best friend.”

“'Til you found out I wasn’t a city girl at all,” Mrs. Kent remarked, rolling her eyes. “I was out there for my practicum, I’m just as country as the rest of y’all. As for my intentions…they evolved.”

Mr. Kent didn’t make a verbal reply, just kept his eyes on the road and chuckled quietly to himself.

“I thought he was hot shit,” Mrs. Kent elaborated tactfully. “Then he had to go and be a gentleman and…well, y’know, you had that Prince Eric hairdo at the time and…” 

She fell briefly silent. There was a slight smile on her face and Mrs. Kent shrugged, a far-away look in her eye. Like she was looking at the twenty-something with the Disney prince haircut and falling in love all over again.

“I fell real hard,” she concluded. “And real fast.”

Fast was right. To Lois’s astonishment-cum-horror, it was revealed that Mr. and Mrs. Kent had only been dating six months before she moved back to Smallville with him. His grandfather died and left him the farm to take care of, filling in more of the pieces to the story Clark told her about the whole Kent family drama about who inherited the property. 

There was no hesitation on Mr. Kent’s part, no hemming and hawing about what choices he’d make, about the direction he wanted his life to take. There was one road for him and it always led back to the farm. Mrs. Kent knew how much the land and legacy meant to him. He didn’t have to ask her to come home with him, she acted like it was a foregone conclusion that when he went back, she’d be going with him.

“You just left?” Lois asked, trying and failing to keep her voice mild and nonjudgmental. “Like…moved to some town where you didn’t know anybody? Just like that?”

“Sure did,” Mrs. Kent nodded and shrugged carelessly, like uprooting one’s whole life for a guy one had known less than a year was something that people did all the time. “Like a postmodern frontier bride.”

“Hey, at least I didn’t have six brothers I expected you to take care of,” Mr. Kent pointed out. “You ever seen that movie, Lois? Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?”

She had not, but Lana floated it as a possible film to feature on their hypothetical future podcast (Lois really needed to get out of the habit of committing to things she thought were jokes). The conversation shifted to Hollywood movies of yesteryear, leaving Lois free to nod along, only half-listening while she ruminated on the conversation.

Speaking of Hollywood, someone needed to adapt Mr. and Mrs. Kent’s love story into a feel-good romcom, that was how utterly contrived the whole thing sounded. For real, the movie could open on a title card that read, 'Once Upon a Time,' and close with, 'They Lived Happily Ever After.' For crying out loud, it took Lois six months to decide if she liked someone enough to hang out with them socially, never mind moving in with them! For one wild moment, she tried to imagine a real-life scenario that she'd experienced which was even remotely close to the tale of how Mr. and Mrs. Kent got together.

The nearest equivalent she could come up with was this trip. Only instead of Clark saying, ‘Hey, if you want to have a cheap vacation, stay at my parents’ for a week,’ he was like, ‘Hey, my dad unexpectedly dropped dead and I have to devote myself to The Land. Come with me, otherwise we’ll never see each other again.’

There was no question in her mind what her answer would have been: ABSOLUTELY NOT. SORRY ABOUT YOUR DAD. HAVE A NICE LIFE. 

Of course, they had technological innovations that did not exist in the ‘90s. The near constant-contact of cellphones was a far cry from ye olden times of dial-up internet and landlines. If Clark ditched Metropolis for Smallville, she could see him every day if she wanted to via FaceTime. And she probably would call when she got home from work to check in on him, unload on him. She didn’t have to uproot her life to be a part of his, in this fake, alternate reality where he was leaving Metropolis, which he definitely was not in their actual reality. Those airline tickets were round-trip and on Wednesday he’d be coming home with her.

For now, though, the Kent homestead loomed on the horizon. There was no sign of Clark when they got back to the house, but between Lois, the elder Rosses, and Lana (who briefly ran home to change into jeans and a hoodie), they got everything set up for the evening pretty efficiently.

They arranged a folding table for snacks and s’mores, filled a cooler with ice for beer for the adults and juice boxes for the kids. Chairs and blankets went around a large stone fire pit creating an inviting atmosphere. 

Rafi came back ahead of Maureen and Maisie, who was still conked out at her parents’ house. He took charge of getting the fire going, having been an Eagle Scout which seemed to be his primary qualification. He attempted to teach Pete’s little sisters how to build a good fire, a process which was slowed down considerably due to Pete’s insistence on standing directly behind him, singing the first six bars of the Survivor theme song over and over, prompting Rafi to break out into laughter.

While she sat curled up in an Adirondack chair, waiting for the fire to catch, Lois rubbed her arms; it was a colder night than she expected and unlike Lana she was still wearing the cropped tank top and shorts that had been her fair attire. She could go upstairs, but she was feeling lazy and had just taken her first sip of rose from the bottle of screw-top wine Lana added to the cooler along with the beer and juice.

Mrs. Kent approached her with what Lois thought was a red plaid blanket, but it turned out to have arms. It was a heavy flannel shirt, probably one of Clark’s judging by the size. 

“I could see the goosebumps on your legs from the porch,” she joked, keeping one eye on Rafi’s efforts. Once she handed the shirt to Lois, she turned toward the fire pit, asking, “Do y’all need help?”

Lois slipped her arms into the sleeves, having to roll them back several times to liberate her hands. Mrs. Kent must have gotten it out of storage since it smelled vaguely like cedar, a cozy, woodsy smell, which was quickly joined by the scent of burning wood when Mrs. Kent started a blaze going in what seemed like no time at all.

“Ha-ha!” Lana crowed victoriously, raising her arms in triumph, jumping up and down. “In the showdown between Eagle Scout and Gold Award, the winner is…”

“Gold Award!” she and Mrs. Kent chorus in unison, running over to double high-five each other. Mrs. Kent raised her eyes and broke out in a grin, looking at something behind Lois.

“Hey, baby!” she called out.

Clark was there, standing behind her as though he’d just strolled up the driveway. Before he could get a word in, of greeting or anything else, Lana swiveled her head around so hard to glare at him, Lois was surprised she didn’t give herself whiplash. 

“Got tired of ditching us?” she asked sharply.

Lois took a large gulp of wine to cover her wince; Lana genuinely seemed to be over it at the fair, but apparently she’d just been covering up her irritation with Clark until she could bawl him out to his face. 

The look Mrs. Kent gave Lana prompted Lois to take another glug of wine. It wasn’t anger - it was disappointment and that was somehow much, much worse. Lana didn’t appear to notice, all her attention was focused on Clark.

Lois’s wine glass was more empty than full, so she eased herself out of the chair to get a refill, sneaking past Clark who…well, it might have been the flicker of the firelight over his face, but for a second (just a split second), Lois thought he looked hurt.

“I’m going to get a beer,” Clark said, walking right past the cooler and going up the porch, where he disappeared inside the front door. 

Pete put both hands on Lana’s shoulders and led her away from the fire pit, around the other side of the house. 

“What are you - ” she began, but he cut her off.

“You need to fucking stop,” he muttered, no trace of levity in his voice. The serious expression on his face made him look like a completely different person, nothing at all like jolly PeteRoss with his fluffy hair and near-constant jokes. 

Awkward, she thought, glancing over at Mrs. Kent. In another sign of the perfect unity that existed between herself and her husband, the Kents exchanged a look and without a word spoken, Mr. Kent followed Clark up the porch and into the house. More guests were arriving, including Gray, their partner, and their fellow volunteer from the fair, so Mrs. Kent walked down the driveway to greet them.

Lois refilled her wine glass and settled back down in her chair, eyes on the fire that Rafi was nurturing while his sisters-in-law helped themselves to snacks. In a move out of the Lana Lang playbook, she took a snapshot of the fire pit and uploaded it to Instagram. 

Clearly there was a lot of drama going on around her and Lois, wrapped up in flannel and starting to get a tiny buzz from the wine, was not interested in partaking (anyway, there was no way she’d be able to sneak off and follow either the Kents or Pete and Lana without one of Pete’s sisters noticing her and loudly inquiring where she was going). Hopefully it would blow over soon, but in the meantime, she’d just hang back and watch the flames. 

Having her phone in her hand, she checked her messages and couldn't help herself re-reading Clark’s last text to her, sent before they even left Metropolis.

The point is to relax. I know you struggle with that, we’ll work on it.

Lois smiled to herself as she took another sip of wine, the irony not lost on her. After all, she was the one enjoying a nice evening by the fire, while Clark was definitely having some kind of manly heart-to-heart with his dad since it did not take this long to grab a beer. 

I’m chillin like a villain , she thought smugly (okay, the buzz was more than tiny) as she snuggled into Clark’s shirt and put her phone face-down on the arm of the chair. Maybe I could teach you a thing or two about relaxing, buddy.

Chapter Text

Clark couldn’t get drunk. When he opted to imbibe, he made his selections based on flavor, so he mostly stuck to cocktails that taste like smoothies and beers that taste like lemonade. His parents kept a stash of sours in the fridge for him and that stash was Clark’s destination.

It was only when he crouched down in front of the refrigerator that he realized he was allowed to be upset.

Superman was not allowed to get upset. If Superman showed a hint of anger, it would be absolutely terrifying. So, when Lana made her shitty little dig at him and Clark felt the muscles in his jaw going tight, he got the hell out of there before he gave the smallest indication that he was running on setting other than lawful neutral. 

Except he wasn’t Superman right now. He was Clark. And Clark was allowed to frown. 

Upon that revelation, he did so, glaring at the milk bottles and the beer cans and rack of expired condiments until he heard his dad’s voice behind him. 

“Want to tell me why you’re running up the electric bill?”

Clark closed the fridge without removing anything from it.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, straightening up. Still, he didn’t move, just looked at the hodgepodge assortment of magnets, post-it notes, and invitations for social events that had come and gone (Ma had a Thing about throwing cards away) like it was a map and he was trying to find his way home by it.

There was a scrape of chair legs on linoleum as Pa pulled a seat out. He didn’t say anything else to Clark, just moved around him to re-open the fridge. Pa removed a raspberry radler, opened it with a quiet hiss, and set it in front of the vacant chair. He inclined his head toward the chair very slightly, which was all the encouragement Clark needed to sit down. As soon as he'd done so, he set his elbows on the table, resting his forehead on the tips of his fingers.

One of Pa’s hands fell on the back of his neck squeezing it lightly, giving him time to settle in, let the muscles his shoulders unclench. Giving him time to fully become Clark again when he’d just spent so much of his day being someone else.

Taking ‘Superman’ off wasn’t an instant thing, like changing a shirt. It would be amazing if it was, if he could just ditch the suit, pop on his glasses, and resume his life. The reality was more complicated than that and his dad understood better than just about anyone else. Seriously, if Pa wasn’t all in on farm life, he would have made one hell of a therapist. He just got people, had a sixth sense about them that could read as a little spooky, depending on the circumstances. Clark found it comforting (most of the time).

If he’d come in hot, like Ma had a tendency to do, Clark would have felt cornered and overwhelmed and deflected until either Pa gave up trying to have a conversation or Clark flew off the property again to escape the discomfort. 

However, Jonathan Kent, as established, was some kind of empathy psychic and he didn’t do that.  He waited, with that reservoir of patience he had that never seemed to run dry, until he sensed Clark was ready to talk. 

“What’s going on?” he asked, simply. And that was all it took for Clark to word vomit all over him.

“There was this vaccine shipment,” Clark explained, lowering his hands and lifting his head. Pa sat down next to him and settled in to listen. “International aid org. Their trucks got messed with, catalytic converter theft, which…the trucks were drivable, but I guess they were worried about the convoy getting stopped because of environmental concerns and - forget it, it doesn’t matter. The point is, the issue took too long to resolve, the refrigeration units shit the bed, and by the time I got there, half the vaccines were spoiled and won’t be able to be administered.”

“Shit,” Pa observed, sagely.

“Yeah,” Clark agreed. He took a sip of the beer. It tasted like a melted Jolly Rancher, which was nice, but it didn’t go very far toward improving his mood. “Like, malaria vaccines for kids. And the supply was already not enough to begin with so now the community is getting less than half of what it needs. It just sucks.”

Clark set his glasses on the kitchen table and rubbed his hands over his face, like he was trying to scrub the memory out from behind his eyeballs. The thing that bothered him the most were how damn grateful the people were - the doctors, their patients, they just kept thanking him for all he’d done and it made him feel so guilty. 

It was like that scene in Pollyanna where she talked about playing the Glad Game that time she asked for a doll in the missionary barrels and got a pair of crutches. And her minister father was like, ‘Well, be glad you don’t need them!’ Clark was fully in Aunt Polly mode, like…in a few weeks or months, all those nice people might be dealing with a catastrophic health crisis . Please don’t thank the guy who can’t even get a mosquito bite.

“I was too late to actually help,” he continued. “Like, when that airplane was in trouble last night, it was a big deal. I realized it was happening right away and was able to just take care of it.”

Clark thought about that a lot on the way back home. How the news of a potential aviation disaster reached him almost immediately. By comparison, this was scarcely a blip on the international radar. Honestly, if he hadn’t intervened with the plane, there was every possibility the pilots could have landed it themselves. He provided a guarantee of safety, but he wasn’t the last resort. That aid org? Those kids, waiting for their medicine? If they didn’t have a guy who could fly and carry heavy shit, they would have been completely screwed. Instead of just mostly screwed, which was the situation Clark left them in. 

“You did do something,” Pa said. He rested a hand very gently on Clark’s arm, like he was giving him tacit permission to pull away if he wanted to. “You got them their vaccines - some of them. That’s not nothing.”

“It’s not enough,” Clark insisted, though he didn’t move his arm. “I didn’t hear about this until it was almost too late. It was too late, I was too late.” 

His next sip of beer went down a lot harder. Clark felt sick to his stomach thinking of the kids who weren’t going to get their shots, who might get sick, might die because some criminals wanted to make a buck and some government officials wanted to cut corners. 

“No one else is gonna hear about it either,” Clark frowned hard at the table. “That’s the worst part of this - there’s like fifty fucking angles of me carrying a goddamn plane being blasted out to people’s phones all over the world and it’s just…who gives a shit? Like genuinely, that was easy compared to - sorry, that sounds insane, I’m just pissed at myself, that’s all.”

All through his little diatribe, his father just…looked at him. Pa had an open face, easy to talk to, non-judgmental. He leaned back slightly in his chair, cocking his head to the side and folding his arms, maintaining steady eye contact. Like he had all the time in the world and Clark was the only person he wanted to talk to.

As ever, when Clark was anxiety-spiraling about the Superman of it all, he kept one ear out for anyone approaching the house who might potentially hear something they shouldn’t. There wasn’t a whisper of sound close by, everyone was out by the fire…except for Pete and Lana who were on the other side of the house by the tire swing.

“ - just lay off him, is what I’m saying. He’s out there busting his ass for everyone and no one hardly ever says ‘thank you.’ It’s crazy, you watch the videos - ”

“I don’t watch the videos. I can't watch the videos.”

Pa’s reply snapped him back to the present room just in time - no way he wanted to know where that conversation was going. 

“You don’t sound insane,” Pa offered. “And you’re right to be pissed - hell, I’m pissed and I wasn’t even there. It’s a shameful situation. They going after the guys that stole the converters?”

“Who cares?” Clark replied without thinking. Then he reconsidered his words and rubbed at his eyes again. “I mean - maybe? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter at this point. What are they going to do, put them back? It doesn’t fix anything, those kids still aren’t going to get the care they need - ”

Clark’s voice broke and his anger at himself was renewed. God, what right did he have to get weepy about this? He was the one who fucked up and now people were going to suffer -

“Clark.”

He blinked a few times to try and force the moisture back into his tear ducts (one ability he did not have). Pa reached out and gave his arm a squeeze. 

“You can be upset,” Pa said steadily. “You can be frustrated. You can be angry. But you can’t - you shouldn't - blame yourself. Okay? Some shit’s out of your hands. You didn’t make the equipment break down. You can’t set up a lab and make a bunch more vaccine to ship out tonight. You can’t time travel and un-steal the car parts.”

Obviously he didn’t condone theft, but he understood that desperate people did desperate things. Still. He figured a desperate person must have lines they wouldn’t cross. Critically endangering the lives of innocent children was a pretty big fucking line. 

“I think if they knew what was in ‘em…” Clark began, hastily wiping a tear out of the corner of his eyes, because, seriously, what right had he to be crying right now? “They wouldn’t have done it.”

Some of those kids were so little and he couldn’t stop thinking about Maisie and how if someone met her or any of those kids he’d seen today, they couldn’t possibly want to deprive them of critical medical supplies. Like, an average person, the kind of person who might be driven to theft, but would never consider hurting kids. Obviously there were some people in the world who wouldn’t give a shit, but not most people. 

“Could be,” his dad acknowledged. “Point is, Superman’s good for a lot of shit, but you’re just one person. A lot of people had to make a lot of mistakes before those refrigerators broke down. There’s plenty of situations you can help with, but you can’t fix broken systems by yourself. You’ll drive yourself crazy if you try.”

It was a point Pa made before and it was a good point, which was possibly why it rankled so much. Clark didn’t have delusions of grandeur, he knew what he could do - which was a lot - but he knew he wasn’t some kind of all-powerful being (he sure as shit wasn’t all-knowing). He could help people, but he couldn’t materially change the circumstances of their lives that led to their needing help in the first place. He couldn’t reform governments, he couldn’t control the weather, he couldn’t hack off-shore bank accounts and redistribute wealth from billionaires. 

He could stop a plane from falling out of the sky. Fly a few trucks across miles of bad roads. Evacuate stranded people from a flood zone. It was plenty, sure, but on days like this, it felt like it would never be enough.

Thoughts like that could drive a man crazy. Just like Pa said.

“You thinking about writing it up?” Pa asked him, when Clark didn’t reply. “Could get the issue out there, at least. Raise awareness.”

In truth, Clark considered making the pitch when he got back, but he wasn’t convinced it would do much good. 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, the tiniest hint of a whine in his voice. “I don’t know that it’d get approved. I’d probably have to use Superman as the hook and that’s…that can be a problem.”

“How do you mean?” Pa asked, cocking his head to the side, curiously.

Clark glanced at the wall of the kitchen. He wasn’t at an angle where he could look outside and see Lois, he barely got a glimpse at her as she dashed around him toward the cooler. Maybe the reason why Lana’s snide remarks got to him was because (on a deep and shameful level) there was a part of him that agreed with her. The push and pull of wishing he’d done more today while simultaneously wishing that he’d been able to stay at the fair. Ride the Ferris Wheel. Hang out with his friends, especially Lois. The more time he spent sulking in the kitchen, the less time he got to spend with her. They still had three more days before they flew back, but it didn’t feel like enough time. Especially, as Lana said, he might have to ditch them again.

“Lois says Superman’s a distraction,” he explained. “Every story that so much as mentions him becomes about Superman in the minds of the readers and no one winds up paying attention to the important stuff.”

It was like he’d swallowed a lead softball when Lois explained her Superman Eclipse Theory to him. No matter how nuanced the writing, how careful the coverage, the readers’ takeaway was: Superman Saved The Day. Never mind that people pulled out of an apartment fire didn’t have a place to live after Superman left. Or that the sick child and their family whose medical helicopter malfunctioned were still dealing with the stress and uncertainty of treatment once they arrived at the hospital. Or - 

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Pa said, his voice cutting through Clark’s anxiety spiral while a smile curled his lips slightly. “I like your girl Lois - ”

“Uh, Lois is not my anything - ”  

“She’s real self-assured,” Pa continued, as though Clark hadn’t said a word. “Confident. Smart. Funny, all that, but she’d got a…”

Pa trailed off, letting silence hang between them for a minute as he gathered his thoughts. Jonathan Kent was unhurried in his conversation. He didn’t mind pausing mid-sentence to make sure that whatever he was going to say, he meant. Some found that quality off-putting, but Clark thought it was a great quality, especially when he spent so much time in the Planet offices. There, conversations often didn’t involve real listening, just using the time the other person you were in a dialogue with spent talking to plan the next part of your argument. Admittedly, Lois was guilty of that kind of thing from time to time.

“She can be a little black and white, in how she sees things,” Pa said, finally. “Everything’s one way or the other. All good or all bad. I can see her being partly right, of course. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who get distracted by the Superman parts and ignore the rest, but that can’t be everyone. Your paper’s one of the best in the country, that's a lot of eyes on the stories.”

“Yeah, great,” Clark said, rubbing his eyes. He put his glasses back on, before he could forget that he wasn’t wearing them. It was so second nature to him that he reached for them in the morning on his nightstand, even if his plans for the day didn’t involve leaving his apartment. “I just need one kind-hearted billionaire to be moved by my article and donate their vast fortune, um, you know, the part that isn’t hanging out in a shady off-shore bank account - ”

“Nah, come on now, you’re smarter than that,” Pa interrupted him, but not unkindly. He was still faintly smiling. “I say write it up. Chances are, a few people’ll see past Superman to what really needs saying - that he comes around because people need him. That there's problems need fixing and he's not the only one that can lend a hand. The only guarantee that people won’t care is if you don’t tell the story. How can they help if they don’t know there’s a need?”

Pa stood up, making a motion that they should head toward the doorway. 

“Could be they’ll make a donation, write to Congress,” he mused. “Think on it, but not too hard. Take your beer, let’s head back out - you can’t pitch any articles now, you’re on vacation.”

Clark smiled despite himself. That was true. Imagine, in the lead-up to their trip, Clark thought it would be Lois who’d have a hard time letting go of work. If she knew he was composing articles when he was supposed to be lounging around a fire, she’d think he’d been abducted and replaced with a pod person or something. 

‘Who are you and what have you done with Clark?’ he could imagine her demanding, poking him in the chest and glaring up at him with her blue-violet eyes which were, as Lana remarked when she met her, drop-dead gorgeous. Probably more gorgeous in the firelight. 

Clark got to his feet, compulsively double-checking to make sure he was wearing his glasses. He picked up his beer in his free hand and stopped just outside the door when his dad put up a hand to stall his progress.

“I know you probably don’t want to hear it,” Pa said, looking up at him with a frank sincerity. “I know you’re not proud of yourself right now. But I’m real proud of you. Take it or leave it, but it’s true.”

Clark rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and groaned, eyes getting hot and watery again. 

“Goddammit, Dad, right before we go outside?”

Pa tilted his head in a half shrug. Then he opened his arms.

In addition to being maybe psychic, Pa gave great hugs. Life-affirming hugs. Like, seriously, fuck Superman, if every troubled soul in the world could get a kind word and a hug from Jonathan Kent, they’d have global peace in a year.

But Pa was only one guy. Even if he devoted himself to dispensing free advice and free hugs 24/7, it’d be a long time before he got to everyone on planet Earth. And there was the harvest to think about besides. 

Pa gave him a bracing pat on the back and headed outside. Clark followed behind, sipping his now warm beer. Lana and Pete were still out back by the tire swing. But Lois was there, curled up in a chair by the fire.

“Hey there,’ he said, pulling up a patch of dirt beside her chair and - holy shit. She looked so beautiful, wrapped up so sweetly in his winter shirt, face aglow in the firelight.

Clark was down bad. He had been from practically the first second he saw her. Lois radiated energy, like the sun, condensed into a package of brains and ambition and a reckless self-assuredness that was equal parts awe-inspiring and a little scary. In short: perfect.

“Hey,” Lois said with a big ol’ smile. “Guess what I’m doing?”

Clark paused, eyes darting from the half-empty glass by her side to the soft, slightly dazed expression on her face.

“...drinking?” he surmised.

Lois leaned over so that they were practically nose-to-nose. 

“Relaxing,” she whispered, like it was a secret. “All by myself! I win!”

Despite…well, everything, Clark laughed out loud. Who could turn the concept of rest into a competition? Lois Freaking Lane. 

It was one of the reasons why he…ah. Why he thought she was so great. 

“Awesome,” he said, raising his can. “Cheers, girlie.”

Lois snatched up her wine glass and held it just out of reach. 

“Mmm,” she made a face that implied he’d missed the mark very slightly. “Could you…”

Lois smiled, a lopsided, silly smile that had Clark wondering just how much wine she’d gone through in the twenty minutes since he got back. She stopped withholding her glass and knocked it against the side of Clark’s can aggressively, slurping the spillage off the rolled cuff of his shirt (Clark made a mental note to throw it in the laundry pile after they went in.)

“Cheers, darlin’,” she corrected him, feigning a drawl. 

“Cheers, darlin,’” Clark chuckled, taking another sip of his beer before he got up to head heading over to the cooler. As adorable as this was, Lois clearly needed a chaser of water. And probably a s’more or two. 

Lana and Pete were headed back. Pete got to the beer cooler before Clark did, but he shot him a wan smile and threw a lager (ew, gross, beer that tasted like beer) at him, which he caught. Lana bypassed the cooler and stood in front of Clark. Her eyes were red, like she’d been crying, but he was tactful enough not to mention it, just as she was tactful enough not to say anything about his similarly puffy eyes.

Without a word Lana wrapped her arms around his waist and spoke her apology into his shirt. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a heinous bitch,” she said, voice muffled by his sternum. “You don’t deserve it. I love you a lot.”

Clark rubbed his free hand over her back.

“I’m sorry I had to leave,” he said and he meant it, truly. He was sorry he had to go, but he wasn’t sorry that he actually went. Maybe not what Lana wanted to hear, but it was the best he could do. “Sometimes I need an accountabilibuddy. I love you a lot.”

Lana raised her face and gave him a smile, which Clark returned. He also threw the lager back at Pete who almost fumbled it, but managed to catch it at the last second. 

“Also, what the hell, man?” Clark asked. “I’m not drinking this, it tastes like gutter water.”

“More for me!” Pete enthused, opening the can - which, predictably, exploded all over the place. His little sisters got the worst of the onslaught, running off to tell their parents that Pete sprayed them with beer and he did it on purpose.

Lana went back to the cooler, digging around before she retrieved what had been a bottle of wine, but was now just a bottle.

“Huh,” she said, eyeing the bottle suspiciously. Then she ran off to her backpack on the porch, gesturing that Clark should follow her. A second wine bottle emerged and Lana held it out to him expectantly.

“Can you just…” she trailed off, then mimed blowing on it with a tiny huff. 

Clark took the bottle from her, contemplating it for a moment. The first day they came to the farm, Lois asked why he hadn’t stayed put. Times like this, he was sorely tempted. Just…take care of the land. Use his abilities as a party trick or pull a tractor out of the mud. Spend the whole day at the fair.

But if he stayed put, who’d pitch an article about vaccine scarcity to Mr. White? Who would Jimmy waste the first hour of work on Tuesday recapping Monday Night Raw with? Who’d do TV and Takeout with Lois?

Who’d be Superman?

Clark gave the unopened wine a short blast of cold air, the sides slightly frosting. Lana gave him another hug, a quick, tight, squeeze before grabbing the bottle from him. 

“Thank you,” she said, a little more earnestly than the situation called for. “Thank you very much.” 

“Anytime,” he said, then reached out and grabbed Lana’s sleeve. “Hey…you know, if you need me, I’m there, right?”

She hugged the cold bottle to her chest and looked up at him. She nodded, and swallowed. 

“I do, I do know that,” she nodded. “I just need to be better about…telling you. Like I said. Heinous bitch. But I’m working on it!”

She shot finger-guns at him, then ran up the steps into the house, presumably to grab a wine glass. Clark went back to the cooler, digging out a bottle of water for Lois. Rafi and Maureen were handing out sticks and marshmallows. Pa was tuning up his guitar. The night was just starting to fall, everyone was settling in.

The day hadn’t been perfect, but it wasn’t over. There was still firelight and music and marshmallows. Maybe - just maybe - he’d get to stick around for the good part.

Chapter Text

Clark brought Lois a bottle of water. And he made her a s’more - actually, he made her two s’mores, one a culinary experiment where he swapped out the traditional chocolate bar for a peanut butter cup. 

“You’re so good,” Lois declared happily, ignoring the water and starting in on the dessert. Clark grinned at her and something about the firelight rearranged the planes of his face so that, to Lois’s eyes, it did not appear as his usual goober grin, but a Hot Guy grin which was very strange because Clark was not a Hot Guy. 

Lois had him categorized the first time she laid eyes on him and had not deviated (much) from that first impression since. Between his dorky glasses, messy curls, and boring clothes she pegged him as a mouth-breathing nerd who had a past involving Bronycon that he tried to scrub off the internet. When she found out he was from a farm in Kansas, her perspective shifted. She assumed people in the sticks didn’t have regular internet access, so, rather than a history of acting as moderator in the fandom that was most often used as a punchline, she now assumed that he was the kind of nerd who played tabletop games, but, not something in the zeitgeist like Dungeons & Dragons , more on the line of Stratego or Settlers of Catan. 

His physical appearance was almost irrelevant at that point - no one could be a Hot Guy, in Lois’s view, if their primary form of entertainment was role-playing as a colonizing force - but all that aside, Clark wasn’t her type. 

Lois tended to be attracted to people with an edge, something a little quirky or different about them that made her look twice. Clark wasn’t a second look kind of person. He was generically attractive in a boy-next-door way, but not Devastatingly Handsome. Additionally, he was pointlessly tall and inconveniently wide, with a neck that appeared to be roughly the same circumference as his head. Beefcake, sure, but like…American angus, something you could pick up at any grocery store. Not A5 wagyu that had to be specialty ordered, you know? 

“What are you doing with your face?” Lois asked Clark, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously. He was Not Hot. And yet her perception of Hotness persisted.

Clark blinked at her - and yeah, okay, she realized at some point during TV and Takeout that he had really pretty eyes. Blue, but also, blue. Really, really blue. Just…super-duper blue.

Clark furrowed his brow in confusion, but it was somehow Hot Confusion. 

“Nothing?” he replied, a question in his voice. “Just…having a face. How ‘bout you drink some water?”

Oh, right, he brought her water. But she wasn’t thirsty. 

“I’m good,” Lois said, reaching for her stemless wine glass - huh. It was empty.

“Sure you are,” Clark agreed easily. “But maybe you should drink some water?”

Yeah, that was a good idea, hydrate before you die-drate and all. Lois unscrewed the top of the water bottle and took a couple of sips - oh. That’s why she wasn’t thirsty.

“I have to pee,” she announced, getting up out of the chair, only needing two attempts at it before she was successfully on her feet. 

Lois took off the giant shirt she was wearing and tossed it at the chair, intending to mark her territory, like she was a tourist on a fancy beach vacation. Her aim was a little off and the stemless wine glass that had been her closest companion for the past hour was in danger of shattering on the ground. Clark somehow caught it, in a move so fast Lois missed it entirely. It was like she blinked and the glass just appeared in his hand. 

“Good catch,” she remarked approvingly, flashing him two thumbs up. Then she pointed a finger at him and instructed Clark, very firmly, “Don’t let anyone take my seat.”

He saluted her and gravely replied, “I’ll guard it with my life.”

Lois saluted back and wound her way inside. The Kents had such a cool house, all warm and friendly and full of stuff. Taking this vacation was a great decision, maybe the best decision Lois made all year. She got to hang out with Clark a whole bunch extra, got to meet his cool, queer parents who fed her the most amazing food, and they had the cutest dogs. Yeah, there was occasional weird stuff, like Lana being randomly a bitch sometimes and Clark being magically hot all of a sudden, but overall Lois was having the night of her life and literally couldn’t remember a time she’d been happier.

She texted her sister one of the selfies Lana took during their ride on the Ferris Wheel. The three of them looked extremely adorable, all crowded in together, beaming happy smiles up at the camera. Lana and Lois leaned their heads together while Pete gave them both bunny ears. It might have been the best picture Lois had ever taken, come to think of it.

Her phone buzzed while Lois was washing her hands.

Who are those people?

Lana (who might have acrush on melol and PeteRoss!

That tells me nothing, where are you?

Smallville baybeeeeeeeee! 😂😂😂

Are you drunk?

Lois frowned down at her phone. No, she wasn’t drunk, she’d had one glass of wine (she refilled it four times, but that still only counted as one glass because she drank it out of one vessel). She was just happy and fuck Lucy for assuming that because Lois was freely expressing joy, she must be drunk. 

Lois left her phone on the sink and went back outside where all her best friends in the world were, leaving her loser sister on read. 

Good as his word, Clark was standing idly by Lois’s chair where the second s’more and the bottle of water was waiting for her, but the wine glass had gone missing. Lois didn’t make it to the chair, pausing in her trek due to Lana beckoned her to sit next to her on one of the picnic blankets.

“We should cuddle!” she insisted, reaching up for Lois, arms outstretched. Lois happily obliged her. Face scrubbed free of makeup, one might think that Lana’s relative position on the Hotness scale (namely, Super Hot) would be diminished, but no! The magic of the fire worked on her too and she was still fucking stunning.

“You have such beautiful freckles,” Lois said, her face scant inches from Lana’s face as she plopped down next to her. 

“Oh my God, thank you!” Lana replied, glowing from the praise and the firelight. She reached out and curled her fingers in the ends of Lois’s hair. “I just love dark hair, it’s so pretty, you’re so pretty - Clark! Isn’t Lois soooooo pretty?”

“Soooo pretty,” Clark agreed softly. 

He had such a nice voice. All way back when Lois suspected Clark was a Settler of Equestria she could bring herself to admit his voice was pretty good. All deep and warm, a little rumbly sometimes when he was trying to be quiet. She liked his lil’ accent too, especially now that he was really flaunting it and saying things like ‘darling,’ without the ‘g.’ 

An uncomfortable thought intruded on Lois’s bubble of bliss, a harsh truth that she didn’t really want to face about herself. She made a bunch of snap judgments about Clark when she met him, many of which turned out to have no basis in reality (he’d never seen My Little Pony and he wasn’t actually a stupid hick). How would she have reacted if he used terminology like, ‘girlie’ and ‘darlin’’ before she actually got to know him?

Not well, probably. She would have snarked on him, at the very least. Snorted derisively and rolled her eyes said, ‘Fuck off, farm boy,’ or something else straight out of the script of The Princess Bride, but the part when Buttercup was being an asshole.

Clark stood over them, holding the shirt Lois left behind.

“Ooh!” Lana reached up and snatched it, holding it out to Lois with a grin. “Our get-along shirt!”

Lois picked up what Lana was throwing down immediately and they each put one arm in the sleeves. Pete’s sister Cassie looked over at them and laughed.

“Oh my God, can you button it?” she asked, face lighting up at the prospect. “Please button it.”

“Just you know,” Clark retorted, defensively. “I usually wear that over a sweatshirt, so it’s supposed to be roomy. Like a very flexible jacket.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Cassie looked him over critically. “And when you’re wearing it over a sweatshirt, can you button it?” 

Clark’s mouth dropped open and his expression morphed into a look that was torn between amusement and outrage.

“Cass!” Pete cried out, aghast. “Stop body-shaming Clark!”

Cassie ignored him completely and started a chant, “Button the shirt! Button the shirt!”

Her sisters gleefully joined in and Lois and Lana could hardly disappoint The Children. They had to press very close together, with Lana practically in Lois’s lap, but they managed to get the shirt buttoned up to the general amusement of everyone around them. The buttonholes were pushed to the absolutely limit, but anything for a laugh, right?

Clark, being the good sport that he was, took a picture and texted it to the two of them. Lois groped around in her pockets for her phone, but didn’t find it. Huh. She must’ve left it back on the Adirondack chair.

The wine and the fire and the flannel shirt, plus being shoulder-to-arm-to-hip next to another person quickly made Lois and Lana overheat. They unbuttoned the shirt and instead turned it into a makeshift lap blanket. Clark held out a water bottle for Lois to take, then sat on the blanket beside hers and Lana’s, laying flat on his back with his hands behind his head, staring up at the stars.

Lois followed his gaze. It was a clear night and the lack of light pollution made for a viewing experience that citizens of Metropolis had to shell out fifteen bucks for at the planetarium. She craned her neck slightly too far back and might have toppled over, but Lana caught her with one arm around her waist. 

How had Lois ever thought the two of them could be enemies? Lana was cute, she was cool, she was nice, and she was occasionally a real bitch which meant she was interesting. What a great girl!

Lois rested her head on Lana’s shoulder and Lana leaned her cheek on the crown of Lois’s head, adopting the pose the Kents had on the Ferris Wheel. 

“Clark, take a picture!” Lois insisted. “We’re being so freaking cute.”

“Already did,” he replied. This was confirmed when Lana’s phone buzzed from an incoming text, but Lana didn’t reach for it, she just kept her arm around Lois and gave her a squeeze.

Not to be outdone, PeteRoss made a sliding tackle into Clark. 

“Lana!” he called over, throwing an arm and a leg over Clark’s torso, hugging him like he was a life-size teddy bear. “Take a picture! We’re being so freaking cute!”

“Can’t,” she replied immediately. “I’m too busy being in the moment with Lois.” 

Mrs. Kent obliged Pete and snapped some photos of him and Clark before Pete was called away to get more marshmallows for his sisters. A few guitar chords rang out and Lois, at first, thought it was a very high-quality ringtone until she realized that Mr. Kent was playing live.

An honest to God sing-a-long ensued. The set list included overplayed faves like ‘Wagon Wheel,’ summer camp classics like ‘Rattlin’ Bog,’ and other songs that Lois was unfamiliar with.   

Lana got up to get herself more wine and Lois adopted the position Clark had been in, lying down, letting the music and the nighttime wash over her. Callie trotted over and curled up at Lois’s side to settle in for a nap. Had she thought she was relaxing before? Wrong. This was relaxing.

Lois turned her head to look for Clark, to see which one of them was winning the vacation game. It looked like they’d tied. Clark wasn’t lying down anymore, he was sitting next to his mom, leaning against her chair. Mrs. Kent was scratching her nails over his scalp in an absent, soothing way, and singing solo - the saddest song Lois had ever heard about a girl named Lillian who had an awful life.

Lois rolled over on her stomach, without waking Callie, resting her cheek on her folded arms as she looked at Clark. His eyes were closed and his shoulders hitched as he sighed. All at once, the muscles in his face relaxed. It was like he’d been holding all the world’s problems inside and hadn’t let them out until that moment. 

Clark opened his eyes and caught Lois staring at him. He didn’t look annoyed, though. He just smiled at her, a slightly wan smile she’d never seen on him before.

Something’s up with him, Lois realized, the first totally clear thought she’d had since the sun went down. He’s really sad.  

Maybe he was thinking about leaving already. It was crazy, they’d only spent two and a half days in Smallville, but Lois felt like it had been much longer. It was an easy place to get used to and if this was Clark’s baseline normal, she could see how he might not be looking forward to the return trip. People called Metropolis the City of Tomorrow for its reliable public transportation system, highly-rated schools, low crime rate, and overall focus on cleanliness and sustainability...but you still had to watch a projection show to see the stars. 

There were a lot of green spaces in Metropolis, but they were cultivated little parks and rooftop gardens. There weren’t a lot of places around town to sprawl out in the dirt (there was practically no dirt to speak of) and it was probably against public safety regulations to have a bonfire. Kicking back like this was something that he could only do in Smallville and they’d be leaving in a few days. 

As the clock ticked closer to midnight, the remaining food and drink went into the house and the ice in the cooler got dumped; Otis and Callie lapped at the ice cubes. People started heading out, packing up chairs and blankets, thanking the Kents for having them over. Pete drove Lana home so she wouldn’t have to walk and eventually it was just Mama and Papa Kent, Clark, Lois, and the dogs. 

They weren’t in a hurry to go inside. As the fire burned down low, Mr. Kent struck up the guitar again and he started singing. 

Mrs. Kent had a more traditionally melodic voice while her husband’s was less polished and he fell into talk-singing when the notes were out of his range, but it produced a calming effect, like listening to late night radio DJs who specialized in jazz. For the first time since she left Metropolis, Lois Got It and really understood why Clark might not be looking forward to leaving. 

It was comfortable here. And that was saying something, coming from Lois who always determinedly carved out a niche for herself anywhere she was, but had never slotted naturally into a community before. 

She was back to wearing Clark’s shirt, though the honorable thing would have been to return it. Clark was still wearing the shirt and shorts he’d donned for the fair, despite the dying fire making the temperature drop. He didn’t look bothered though, he was back to sprawling out on the ground, Otis lying on top of him, seemingly as content as could be. The sorrow she thought she read on his face was totally gone. 

“She don’t like roses,” Mr. Kent softly crooned. “She don’t drink champagne. And now you’re walking home in the soft rain. You pass the mailman, you watch the lights change. And you’re feeling fine. You don’t even mind the rain.”

This is nice, Lois thought drowsily. This is so nice. I love it here.

The next thing Lois knew there was a large, warm hand gently shaking her shoulder.

“Come on, cowgirl,” Clark murmured encouragingly. “Sleeping under the stars is all well and good, but I think it’s gonna rain.”

“Mmm,” Lois retorted, a cogent and articulate argument.

Clark chuckled, silence settling around them, broken only by the chirping of crickets. Very quietly, he offered, “I can carry you inside, if you want.”

“Noooo,” Lois demurred. “I’m getting up. You don’t have to. I weigh pounds.”

“Ha,” Clark snorted. “I think I can handle it.”

Lois opened one eye and looked up at him, half-asleep and entirely skeptical. Clark was kneeling beside her, one arm balanced on his leg, one hand dangling down toward the ground. It was too dark to tell if the Hotness Spell had been broken, but one’s level of Hotness was not directly related to their ability to lug a whole human person around.

“Promise not to drop me?” she asked.

“I won’t drop you,” he said and Lois heard more than saw the smile in his voice. 

Well, if he did drop her, she’d have another piece of leverage (along with Chicken) to keep in her back pocket if she ever needed to blackmail him. Wordlessly, Lois lifted her arms for the first test, seeing if Clark could actually haul her up off the ground, bracing herself to laugh at his folly rather than cringe in mortification if he threw his back out -

Whoa.

All of a sudden, Lois was wide awake. Every paperback romance novelist was contractually obligated to include the line, ‘He carried me as if I weighed nothing!’ to establish the Hero’s certified manliness chops (even if said Hero was a Regency dandy who never lifted anything heavier than a quizzing glass in his life). Except that Clark lifted Lois so easily that, for a split-second, she got the rush of weightlessness that she usually only experienced on drop-rides at thrill parks. 

Then she was pressed against him, even more closely than she had been on the truck that morning. The proximity did something to her because while Clark was immense, he was also immensely cuddly. His arms around her felt as sturdy as steel girders, but he was warm and very slightly squishy in a way that made her want to press into him. 

He also smelled good, a combination of the smokiness from the fire and a quintessential Clark essence which was bright like sunshine and radiated an inherent sense of...something. A quality Lois couldn’t place immediately, that felt like safety and belonging and also made her kind of hot and bothered. She lolled her head against his shoulder, breathing deeply, and mumbled a compliment to that effect. Maybe she thought it rather than said it because Clark didn’t respond.

Clark carried her Like She Weighed Nothing™ all the way up the stairs into the guest room where he set her down on the bed with all the care of someone trying to hold a soap bubble in their hands. Lois sank down into the pillows, having just enough sense to toe her sneakers off so she didn’t put dirty shoes on the covers. 

“I’ll be right back, I’m gonna to get you a glass of water,” Clark said, appearing as a dark shape in the doorway with a voice that rumbled right through her bones. 

“‘kay,” Lois replied, extremely seductively. Then she promptly passed out.

She was awakened by Clark’s return. He put a glass of water and a paper cup of ibuprofen on the bedside table. He also had her phone. 

“You left this in the bathroom,” he said, spying the charging cable on the dresser and plugging it in for her. Clark drifted a little closer to the bed. “G’night - ”

Lois reached out and grabbed his wrist, tugging at him. Clearly she needed to do more weight training at the gym because trying to yank Clark toward her was like trying to move a freighter. 

“Youshouldstay,” she implored, one big slurred expression of sentiment. 

Clark exhaled really deeply and Lois felt like the temperature in the room dropped by several degrees. Luckily she was still wearing his flannel and stayed nice and toasty. 

“I think…that you are very tired,” Clark said slowly. He loosened her grip on his wrist, but held Lois’s hand carefully between both of his, his fingers softly patting the back of her hand. Like the rest of him, his hands were enormous, but he touched her really gently, like she was very special and precious. “I think you should get some sleep. And I’ll see you in the morning.”

It should have felt like rejection, but it didn’t, at least it didn’t sting like rejection usually did. Especially not when Clark lifted up her hand and kissed it softly, exactly like a Regency gentleman might. 

Clark dropped her hand and it flopped lifelessly onto the mattress with a soft thud. Okay, okay, maybe Lois was the teensiest bit tipsy. It would explain the sudden onset of Longing. 

“Okay,” she said, jaw cracking in a yawn that was the antithesis of alluring

“Okay,” Clark echoed. He went into the closet and grabbed an extra blanket, laying it over Lois’s legs since she was clearly in no condition to make the monumental effort to get under the covers. He very briefly passed a hand over her head, smoothing her hair out of her face. “Sleep good, Lois.”

“You too,” she said, eyes at half mast, the words even less intelligible than her suggestion that he spend the night.

Before he left, Clark very romantically placed a small trash can by the side of the bed. Callie the dog trotted in and hopped up onto the mattress, Lois distantly heard Clark request that the pupper keep an eye on her for him. Then he closed the door and went to his room. 

On the dresser Lois’s phone buzzed, the last of several dozen ‘Are you okay?’ ‘Why aren’t you picking up?’ ‘Are you trying to drive me crazy?’ texts from Lucy that got increasingly angry as the night went on. She didn’t hear it though; she was already fast asleep. 

Outside her window, there was a rumble of thunder. Clark was right; rain was on the way.

Chapter Text

Lois woke up to a combination of dry mouth, confusion, and queasiness that she had not experienced since college. She tried to sit up, but her stomach lurched, so she quickly lay down again. After a few minutes where she remained stock-still, she was fairly sure that she wouldn’t get sick, but a glance down at the wastebasket by the side of her bed indicated that at least one other person wasn’t so confident in her.

Shit. Shit. Shit. You fucked it up, Lane. You fucked it up. 

Since the inside of her mouth tasted like death and her hair smelled like oily fire pit residue, Lois decided to take herself to the bathroom and shower before she did damage control. A glimpse at the alarm clock beside the bed read 10:01AM - based on the past few days, the Kents would have been up for hours already, so she figured the upstairs was safely empty. 

Lois padded to the bathroom in near silence. She’d noticed her phone plugged in on the dresser, but pointedly ignored it. There could be nothing good on it and she dreaded what she’d find once she actually checked her messages. The knowledge that several of Clark’s family and friends had her social media handle was enough to bring the queasy sensation back: her memories of the night before were blurry and it was possible that, whatever she’d done, would be (if not career-destroying) at least relationship-killing.

As she stood under the spray of the water, Lois tried to piece together a coherent timeline of the previous evening. She could strongly recall Lana and Clark getting in some kind of weird not-fight where they seemed mad and then made up via hug without actually talking to each other. She remembered Clark bringing her s’mores and everyone singing around a campfire…then, things got extremely fuzzy. Opaque, even. 

Ugh, what had she done? The fact that she was sleeping in her clothes (socks and all, which was crazy, Lois never wore socks to bed, it was a major ick for her) implied that nothing too wild had gone down. But even if she hadn’t done anything scandalous, she might have said things that were completely out of pocket. Things that made Clark and his family and friends wonder how they hell he could have possibly thought she was a person worthy of friendship. 

That fear was all but confirmed as she cautiously made her way downstairs. No one was inside the house, not even the dogs. A glimpse out the front window at the driveway made her heart sink; the cars were gone, so, not only were the Kents out of the house, they’d abandoned the property altogether.

This was all her fault. It had to be. She’d gotten white girl wasted and made a fool of herself and now even the family dogs were too upset or embarrassed to be around her. Lois wondered how much an Uber to the airport would be, then questioned whether or not rideshare existed in rural Kansas. 

They were probably reliant on hitchhiking. She’d have to wait around until the Kents recovered enough from her drunken idiocy to firmly, but politely, evict her from the guest room. At least she could make their lives a little easier and start packing. 

You always do this, Lane, she scolded herself. You have a good thing going, then you get too comfortable and slip up, act like a freak and bam! No more friends. You suck at friendship. You are literally the worst at being a human person - 

Lois was morosely making her way to the staircase when her mental diatribe was interrupted by cheerful barking and the sound of Clark’s voice greeting her.

“Hey! How’re you feeling?”

Once again, Lois found herself nearly falling off the Kents’ stairs. What she saw when she turned around was enough to short-circuit her self-loathing: Clark was standing just inside the doorway, dressed for swimming, in a pair of trunks and a tank top.

Was he trolling her? Was there a hidden camera? Was this trip an elaborate ruse to resurrect America’s Funniest Home Videos by catching her keeling over in shock, recreating the ‘Oh, No, He’s Hot’ meme as she fell down the stairs? If so, Clark was going to be sorely mistaken because it had been done. It probably wouldn’t even crack a million views.

Because, seriously, what the hell? How dare that man have the audacity to order her out of his home while his shoulders and arms were so flagrantly on display? This was definitely a violation of the Geneva Conventions and Lois would see his ass in court. 

Clark’s brow furrowed. “Lois?”

Oh, right, he was expecting a reply despite his traps violating Lois’s human rights. 

“Fine,” she said tersely, feeling her cheeks flame - goddammit, she hated blushing. “Um. I’m really sorry for…whatever I did last night.”

Clark cocked his head at her and inquired, “What do you mean?”

Really? He wanted her to spell it out? He wanted a full confession like he was a priest on his way to the beach and she was a hungover second grader about to make her First Communion? That was doubly bullshit since he told her his family was Quaker, but whatever, she’d humor him because, after all, she was the one who wrecked their party. 

“Um, for getting drunk and terrorizing your friends and family?” Lois offered, a bite entering her tone. 

Yes, she was sorry, but did Clark have to make A Thing about it? Couldn’t he just drive her to the airport, have a friendship breakup in the car, then go back to work, and only speak to each other if they absolutely had to? 

“You have to admit,” she continued, getting heated in her own defense, “it’s a little much for your whole family to flee the house, but, whatever, I get it, I’m a problem - ”

“Lois, Lois, Lois,” Clark walked toward her, but stopped short, with one hand on the bannister, the other reaching out to cut off her insane ramblings. “The things you’re saying are not things that have happened. My parents are running errands, I was out for a bit - I texted you this morning, did it not go through?”

Ah, right, texting, a communication method that existed on the small, hand-held computer she carried with her everywhere and had not opened since she woke up, assuming it contained blackmail-worthy information and images. 

“Um. I didn’t get it,” Lois replied, which was not technically a lie.

“Well, you terrorized no one and nobody fled the house,” Clark reassured her. After a moment of hesitation he added, “In the name of complete honesty, I’ll admit, I was worried you hadn’t eaten enough and might get sick, but action-wise, you were totally fine. Everyone said you were a blast to hang out with.”

Lois examined his face closely for any microexpression which might reveal that he was withholding important details. “I didn’t get sloppy?”

There was a microexpression (more like a macroexpression, better known as an expression), but not one Lois could interpret. Clark blinked a few times and his mouth twisted in a way that wasn’t quite a smile, but he didn’t look specifically unhappy either.

“I thought you were pretty cute,” he said, cringing a little, like he thought she was going to throw something at him. When she didn’t, he added, “You were very happy and…affectionate, but not in a bad way. Like I said, everyone had fun, you weren’t the only person who was drinking, it’s all good. Also my parents broke into the edibles after the company left, they definitely aren’t going to hold a few glasses of wine against you.”

The fact that the Kents were secret stoners was…not a surprise at all, actually. 

“Oh. So. You’re not…kicking me out for having shamed the Kent family homestead?” Lois asked, though she suspected she already knew the answer. 

Clark shook his head, “Nope. I was coming in to check and see if you were ready to head to Wal-Mart.”

“Sure,” Lois agreed readily. Then asked, “Why are we going to Wal-Mart?”

They’d been invited to a pool party, Clark explained. This was information that she already had access to, before the alcohol washed it right out of her brain. The Kearns family, the ones with the horses, had a big in-ground pool and invited people over for an afternoon barbecue. 

“I didn’t bring a bathing suit,” Lois informed him. 

“I know, you said that last night,” Clark nodded. “Lana offered to let you borrow one of hers - ”

“We’re not shaped even remotely the same.”

“Yeah, you also said that,” Clark replied. “So we’re going to Wal-Mart, where you can get a bathing suit. If you’re ready to go, we can head out now, I figured we’d grab food on the way. Evan said to come over at two, so there’s plenty of time.”

It was an amazing recalibration, one that took Lois off-guard. Not only had she not utterly humiliated herself, she’d been a sufficiently okay human to warrant an invite to a pool party. It was actually kind of great; Lois loved swimming, but very rarely got to indulge. She once had a gym membership that included pool access, but she had to drop it a year ago when they raised the rates. 

She promised Clark she’d be right down, once she grabbed her wallet and phone. ‘Right down’ was a bit of an overstatement; no sooner did Lois take her phone off the charger, than she sat down on the bed to read her fifty-thousand notifications. She had three new Instagram friends: kearnsfamilyranch , call_me_q , and kelseykearnsdvm. With slightly baited breath, she opened the app, clicking on all the Stories she’d been tagged in. It was…oh. Actually, it was pretty cute, as Clark said.

There were photos of her and Lana looking like the Two Headed Monster from Sesame Street in Clark’s flannel shirt. An action shot of her dancing with Pete’s sisters in the firelight. A video posted by kelseykearnsdvm of the whole group singing along to Neil Diamond. Now that she was looking at pictures, Lois vaguely remembered meeting Evan and Kelsey, married friends of Clark’s. The conversation about bathing suits remained elusive. 

Because Kansas was landlocked, she assumed the only water access they had came in the form of a swimmin’ hole, a term that implied a soak alongside mutant fish and pond scum, which…yeah, yikes and no thanks. A pool, on the other hand, sounded much more her style.

Her texts were more of a mixed bag. The most recent one was from Clark, a repeat of what he’d told her downstairs. There were more pictures that hadn’t made it to Instagram in a group chat with only a few numbers Lois had in her phone, along with enthusiastic messages about what a great time everyone had and details about getting together to go swimming. There were also a lot of messages from Lucy.

Seriously, where are you? 

Are you okay?

I don’t hear from you for weeks and THIS is what you text me for?

Just let me know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.

This is really fucked up Lois.

The texts continued in that vein until nearly midnight. Then they changed tone.

Just saw you being an idiot on Instagram. Good you know you’re not actually dead, just a piece of shit. I’m going to bed. Don’t reply.

Scientists should really study Lois’s brain, they’d probably uncover a kind of new personality disorder. The fact of the matter was, Lois felt way worse about the Kents imaginary disappointment in her than she did about her sister’s actual anger. Maybe it was an effect of familiarity; she was used to Lucy being mad at her, not used to getting anything but friendly hospitality from the Kents.

After accepting the new friend requests, Lois headed downstairs and followed Clark out to his mother’s Subaru. He adjusted the driver’s seat back and she adjusted the passenger seat up while Clark looked up directions to the closest McDonald’s on the GPS. In absence of a phone, NPR played quietly from the speakers.

“...apartment fire out of Topeka. Several occupants are at a local hospital, being treated for smoke inhalation, but thanks to the timely appearance of Superman, there were no serious injuries - ” 

The broadcast was interrupted when Clark synced his phone to the car’s audio output and Hozier started playing as they drove away from the house.

“Thank you,” Lois muttered approvingly as Clark shot her a knowing look from the driver’s seat. 

“And a Superman story to add insult to injury,” he tsked. “You’re really having a rough morning. First, you think my parents are mad at you, then you have to hear about your arch-nemesis on the radio.”

“Okay, he’s not my arch-nemesis, Martin Mayne from the Gazette is my arch-nemesis,” Lois insisted. She had the good grace to employ jazz hands to punctuate her subsequent praise for Superman. “Obviously yay for him for helping those people not die. And, you know, he could get on my good side if he gave me an exclusive.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Clark replied skeptically. “It’s too bad. Because Superman wants you to know you’re his favorite.”

Lois laughed so hard she snorted. “I’m his favorite?”

“Oh yeah,” Clark continued, totally straight-faced. “Yeah, last time we talked he was like, ‘Clark, tell Lois she’s one heck of a reporter and a fine young lady -’”

“Oh my God, stop,” Lois laughed. “Your Superman impression is so bad.”

“Uh, no, my Superman impression is amazing, actually,” Clark corrected her. “Uncanny valley. Eerily accurate.”

“Your Superman impression and your Kermit the Frog impression sound exactly the same.”

“You love my Kermit the Frog impression!”

“Yeah, because it’s a really good Kermit the Frog! It’s a terrible Superman!”

Clark insisted that he was an artist, really, and that Lois clearly wasn’t paying attention to what Superman sounded like when he spoke. Probably because they were enemies.

“We are not enemies, I do not wish any ill will upon him,” Lois insisted. “I just have questions, right, like anyone would. Only my questions are better than everyone else’s because I’m a professional question-asker.”

“Ooh,” Clark replied speculatively. “Is that what your fancy-pants diploma from Metropolis University says? Lois Lane, Bachelor of Arts in Questions?” 

“Fuck you,” Lois retorted succinctly. Clark grinned at her and she laughed despite herself, the morning’s anxiety (almost!) completely gone. “Listen I want to find out shit that the public should be aware of before they go all in on the guy. Like, who’s paying him - ” 

“No one’s paying him.”

Clark spoke with utter surety, with the same confidence he expressed when he defended his Superman impression, which meant that everything coming out of his mouth was bullshit.

“If Superman was getting paid,” Clark pointed out, “he’d have more than one outfit.”

“Oh, please,” Lois scoffed. “That’s rich coming from you - the guy who cycles through the same five shirts and three pairs of pants every week. Usually people who work out as much as you clearly do want to flaunt their gains, but you do you, Modest Mouse.” 

THE T-SHIRT was strong evidence on its own, but the tank top proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Clark was, to put it mildly, fucking jacked. A fact that Lois might never have discovered in Clark’s usual uniform of quarter-zips and hoodies.

Clark snorted and shrugged. “I’m…physically active, sure. Um. But it’s mostly…uh. Genetics. I think.”

Again with the false modesty. Really, it was fine if Clark was a secret gym rat, in fact, it made sense. Farm Life obviously required getting up even earlier than Reporter Life did. The dude was probably up and at ‘em at, like, five a.m. where there was precious little to do other than work out. 

“I appreciate you showering before you come into the office,” Lois told him sincerely. “You didn’t work for us yet, but when Steve started going for a run on his lunch break and sweated his bologna sandwich out through his pores? That was a horrible summer.”

“Oh, thanks for that olfactory visual, I needed that,” Clark grimaced. 

“‘Olfactory visual’ is not a thing,” Lois retorted. “It’s whatever, it’s…another piece of the Clark puzzle. I thought you were a 500 piece, but you’re a 1,500 piece. More of a challenge, but I’ll figure it out.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Clark asked, mystified, taking his eyes off the road for a second to shoot Lois a bewildered look. 

“Dude,” Lois replied, like it should be obvious, “you’re basically a completely different person out here. Alright, that might be an exaggeration, but like…the way you talk, the way you act. The swearing - did you know some people at the office try to curb their language when you’re around because they’re worried you’ll be offended? Not to mention the gun show.”

For added emphasis, Lois poked Clark directly in his exposed right bicep. It was, unsurprisingly, very firm, but also had some give. This reminded Lois that, despite increased physical contact between the two of them, they still hadn’t actually hugged. He looked like he was built for two things: baling hay and giving fantastic hugs. Apparently he hadn’t run out of hay yet.

“It’s fine,” Lois clarified, hastily withdrawing her finger from Clark’s arm. “I’m not mad or anything. It’s just…there’s more to you than meets the eye. Like Transformers. I wasn’t expecting you to be Optimus Prime under your sad oatmeal sweaters.”

“Excuse you, I’m definitely Bumblebee,” Clark shot back. “I…I don’t know, like, most of the time we’re together is at work. I’m not going to wear a sleeveless shirt to work. And the rest…fair enough. I didn’t realize I was the office killjoy.”

“You’re not a killjoy,” Lois replied, trying to clarify so Clark understood that she wasn't trying to criticize him. “I feel like I’m getting Clark 2.0 and I had the beta version in Metropolis. It’s fine, I’m catching up, we’re making it work. And honestly, you’re probably right to rein it in for the office. It’s professional or whatever.”

All the best internet advice columns told people not to bring their whole selves to their jobs. Lois’s problem was that she’d never been able to be anything other than her whole self, no matter the situation. It was definitely easy to default to showing up on factory settings, but the consequences could be harder to deal with. Or a mixed bag, like today: Lucy said she was a piece of shit. Clark said she was cute. 

At the moment, Clark’s opinion was more important to her than her sister’s. Which was a shitty thing to think, but that didn't make it less true. 

“You’re probably right,” Clark admitted. “Especially about the voice thing, the way I talk. The first couple weeks at the Planet I was worried about people writing me off as a stupid redneck who didn’t deserve to be there.”

Oh. Wow. That was more honesty than Lois was expecting. Maybe uncomfortably honest? Or that might have been the effect of Chappell Roan singing a sad song about meeting an ex for coffee that set a downer mood in the car. 

It may have been blunt, but it was also correct. Early on, Lois did think he was a rando from the sticks who had to prove himself. And she was one of his harshest critics; Lois read his articles, scrutinizing them, actively looking for a smoking gun of incompetence, something to make fun of, only to come up short. Clark was a scrupulously good researcher and a great writer. She remembered finding that frustrating at the time, which was so fucked up. She should’ve been glad the Planet had the best staff possible, not grumpy over the fact that she didn’t have any fodder for shit-talking. 

“People like me,” she muttered, pointedly not looking at Clark as she did spoke. She should probably lay off him about not bringing his whole self to work since she was a primary reason he worried it wouldn’t go over well.

“It wasn’t you - it wasn’t just you,” Clark amended since, yeah, it very much had been her. “When I was getting onboarded, the HR rep thought my ID was fake.”

Lois snapped her head up and looked at him in disbelief, “Seriously?”

“Oh yeah,” Clark nodded, eyes on the road. “Because there’s a covered wagon on it, they were like, ‘This is a joke, right?’ Granted I think our license design is kind of ugly, but it’s not like I chose it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like…like I felt discriminated against or something serious. Just…y’know. It was awkward.”

Sure, but something didn’t have to rise to the point of targeted harassment to be crappy and unprofessional. Suddenly the Kent Charm Offensive seemed less like an endearing trait and more like a coping mechanism.

“And, like, to an extent I get it,” Clark continued. “I didn’t go to Columbia or MetU like everyone else. My resume’s kind of all over the place - Perry told me right out that it was just my writing samples that convinced him to take a chance on me. That was what he said too, he didn’t say ‘hire,’ he said ‘take a chance.’ I was basically holding my breath through my probationary period, I spent my paychecks on rent and almost nothing else because I was convinced I was going to get fired.”

Lois was actively squirming now and tried to cover it by fiddling with the AC. For someone who’d chosen a career based on discovering the truth, Lois was really good at self-delusion. Yes, they had a hard job and people needed to be tough in her line of work, but there was a difference between being privately skeptical about a new colleague’s job-readiness and acting like the Regina George of one of the country’s most prestigious newspapers. 

“I guess I…smoothed out the rough edges,” Clark explained. “I don’t talk about Smallville because the jokes write themselves. You tell someone you’re from a farm and the only reference point they have is Little House on the Prairie. I only let Jimmy know I’m a pro-wrestling fan three months ago because it was WrestleMania season he didn’t have anyone to talk to. I wanted to come across as professional, I didn’t realize I was being boring.”

“You’re not boring,” Lois replied immediately. “I wouldn’t hang out with you if I thought you were boring! You were just a little…closed off. I didn’t realize how much until this weekend, I figured you were a really private person. You’ve never invited me over, we always do TV and Takeout at my place.”

Now it was Clark’s turn to squirm. He glanced over at Lois, taking stock of her demeanor, before answering. She must not have looked too agitated because he soldiered on with more brutal honesty.

“Well,” he began slowly. “I wanted to hang out with you, but I didn’t want to…I figured it’d be better to do it on your turf. You know, so you felt comfortable. Just in case you were at all worried I was a serial killer - or maybe not a serial killer, but a generic terrible guy. I mean, I’m not a small person, in a one-on-one situation, that can be…scary. At least intimidating. And I don’t want to come across that way.”

What was nuts about that was, while Lois had a lot of negative thoughts about Clark when they first met, not once had she ever thought he was scary. In fact, he was one of the least intimidating people she’d ever met. He was his parents’ child, he radiated good vibes. Even the aforementioned gun show was more of a Nerf gun show, with the promise of a fun time to be had rather than violence. Clark didn’t have a Mr. Olympia physique with popping veins and dehydrated muscle striations. He was approachably swole.

“You didn’t,” she said and then amended, “you don’t. Come across as intimidating, but, um. It’s cool that you think about it. That you’re mindful or whatever. We can go to your place, though, if you want. I’d feel totally comfortable going to your place.”

Maybe not the most tactful thing in the world, quasi-insult a guy by telling him you feel like he’s been presenting a bland version of himself for months, then inviting yourself over to his apartment. But as ever, Clark was just…a thoroughly solid dude. And if he took any offense to anything that she’d said over the past seventy-two hours (or nine previous months), he forgave her.

“Cool,” Clark casually agreed as they pulled onto the McDonald’s parking lot. “I’ll see you Thursday at my place - or next Thursday, if you need a break. Like you said, you’ve been kind of overexposed to, um, the real me, I guess? I can understand if you have Clark fatigue.”

“I think I was pretty clear,” Lois said as they unbuckled and got out of the car, “that I feel like I haven’t gotten enough Clark. Overexposure is fine with me.”

Clark smiled at her and, oh yeah. She loved that smile. Smallville!Clark was a different version of Clark, but…special. Like he was a book she’d already read, only with one of those fancy fake leather covers and illustrated pages they sold in limited edition at Barnes & Noble.

Yes, she thought definitively. Clark Kent is a very sweet, very perceptive, and very hunky overpriced book. 

They made quick quick work at the Wal-Mart, Lois found a two-piece she didn’t hate and Clark dipped into the grocery section to grab a twelve-pack of hard seltzer because one did not turn up at a party empty-handed. 

The pool party was pretty lowkey, all the usual suspects were there: Lana, assorted members of the Ross family, and the Kearns family who Lois pretended to totally remember from the night before. There were chips and other salty snacks to eat, along with hotdogs and Impossible sausage. Lois mostly hung out with Lana and Pete, though she did get a little face time with Evan and Kelsey Kearns - and managed an almost entirely normal reaction when the conversation turned toward Kelsey’s recent pregnancy announcement.

“Oh,” was the first thing Lois said, as she took in Kelsey’s wide smile and general air of giddiness. She very quickly added, “Congratulations!”  

Although thirty was on the horizon, Lois’s first reaction to hearing that someone was pregnant was to wonder if it was happy news or not. For her, it would be a definite not, but obviously, not everyone was the same. Especially in Smallville where it seemed people married young - read: in their early twenties, which was considered by many to be well within the window of normal for marriage. 

“You think Clark wants kids?” Lois asked Lana, watching him tirelessly catch Maisie for the hundredth time as she jumped into the shallow end of the pool. He had taken his tank top off and was fully shirtless, exposing his massive pecs covered with the most symmetrical spray of chest hair Lois had ever seen, but she was trying really hard not to be a creep, so she kept her ogling to a minimum.

“Ooh, that is a good question and a tough one,” Lana replied, glancing over, utterly immune to the effect of Clark’s generous bosom. 

Lana was wearing a gingham strapless one-piece and sitting in a fancy inner tube with a cup holder containing one of the hard seltzers Clark brought. Lois was sipping on a can of lemonade that was intended for the children; she wasn’t totally over her morning panic and felt enough residual concern that she decided to go full teetotaler. 

“We both have a…complicated relationship with parenthood, as a concept,” Lana went on, splashing her feet in the water in a bit of a nervous tic.

“Yeah, I know about the adoption thing,” Lois nodded, then turned her attention entirely to Lana, Clark’s hot bod and chest hair be damned. “Are you?”

Lana made a more-or-less gesture with her hand. 

“My parents were not fit,” she said, like it was a speech she memorized. “They’re both prone to self-medicating, they bring out the worst in each other - it wasn’t a safe environment. For them, but especially for a kid.” 

Oh. That was…wow. That was heavy. And nothing Lois would have ever expected from Lana, who seemed so together. But then, it wasn’t like everyone wore their childhood traumas on their sleeves; some suppressed them deep inside. Others, Lois was sure, worked through their issues with the help of a licensed professional. Maybe Lana was one of those. 

“Aunt Ruth got full custody when I was seven, but I’d been living with her since I was four,” Lana shrugged like it was no big deal. “I’m kind of ambivalent about kids. I don’t think people should have them unless they are absolutely certain that they want them and can take care of them - and I mean give them the fucking world, and I am so not there. I have never sensed any movement from my biological clock and, like, with friends’ kids? I’m good for five hours, max, then I have to tap out. Like, I’ll babysit for dinner, but I draw the line at sleepovers with Auntie Lana.”

From the other side of the pool, Clark cried out, “Atta girl!” as Maisie took her hundred-and-first leap off the edge.

“Does Clark tap out?” Lois asked.

“That is an unfair comparison, that man is the Energizer Bunny,” Lana replied, taking another sip of her seltzer. “But he definitely has more patience than I do. Than most people? He loves kids, he’s really good with them. I asked him once if he thought it’d be important to him to have his own , you know, blood related? Of course, he’s not sure if he - ”

Lana stopped herself. Like, full stop, seemed to bite her tongue to cut off the thought. Lois Lane, reporter for The Daily Planet, immediately zeroed in on that. It wasn’t the kind of stutter-stop of someone gathering their thoughts or figuring out how they wanted to phrase something. This was the clamp down of someone who had already said too much. 

“I guess it’s not my business,” Lana pivoted. “Um. Hey, like I told you, I don’t even know if he’s seriously dating so…”

She shrugged and smiled, an awkward, lopsided grin. Lois sensed her shutting down, so she leaned in and spoke in a conspiratorial tone.

“I know I’m going to sound like a dick since, you know, there are children present and one gestating,” she whispered to Lana. “But it is unfathomable to me how people have children before, like, age forty.”

Lana’s face lit up and she cackled, the wall Lois felt coming between them totally demolished.

“Oh, God, I know, right?” Lana shook her head. “Like, good for y’all, but it could not be me. ”

Rafi and Maureen learned their lesson from yesterday and took Maisie home before she had a meltdown. The adults played pool volleyball for another hour, until the group called it quits and headed home. 

Mr. and Mrs. Kent still weren’t back when Clark and Lois arrived, apparently they decided to go for a long drive and stop for dinner on the way back from errands and were leaving them on their own for the evening.

“Pizza?” Clark asked and Lois agreed, assuming he would reach for a take-out menu. She was more than a little surprised when he reached into the fridge and pulled out dough, ready to go, sitting in plastic wrap. 

Lois sat at the kitchen table, nursing a shandy (okay, fine, her No Drinking resolution lasted all of twelve hours, whatever) while Clark puttered around and made barbecue chicken pizza for them, using mostly leftovers, and Caprese salad using tomatoes and basil from the greenhouse garden. While the pizza was cooking, he joined her at the table, cracking open a sour for himself. He looked at Lois thoughtfully and she met his gaze steadily (her willpower was improving, Clark was wearing a t-shirt, which had no effect on her now that she had seen him totally shirtless).

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, running a hand through his hair and ruffling his pristine curls. He hadn’t gotten his head wet at the pool, so his hair looked normal whereas Lois’s was a riot of frizz and tangles. “You said that I was a thousand piece puzzle, but I think you’ve got a few…extra pieces too. If we want to have an extended metaphor about it.”

Lois’s nose wrinkled. “What do you mean?”

Clark bit his lip slightly, (ah, there was a patented Clark goober expression, she was starting to get worried he wouldn’t make dumb faces anymore now that she realized he was kind of hot), then answered, “I just…this morning you were kind of freaking out. And when we first got here, you seemed…awfully concerned about making a good impression. I remember you said you didn’t want to be weird and I was like, ‘Since when does Lois Freaking Lane care what anyone thinks of her?’”

Ouch. Lois had hoped her pivot to the swing would erase that memory from Clark’s consciousness as thoroughly as the wine scrubbed the Kearns’s existence out of her mind, but no luck. 

“Why would you ever think my parents wouldn’t like you?” Clark asked with his signature earnestness. “That anyone wouldn’t like you? You’re awesome.”

It was nice that he thought so, but a little embarrassing for him that he was so completely and thoroughly wrong. A lot embarrassing that Lois could prove him wrong immediately, but she loved being right more than almost anything in the world and she had the receipts.

“Ha, no,” Lois shook her head, pulling out her phone, opening up her conversation with Lucy. “That’s from my sister.”

Clark took her phone and read the messages with a small frown, which deepened as he got to the end of the thread. Wordlessly, he handed Lois her phone back and she placed it on the table with a smug, not entirely happy smile. 

“Yeah, so, there you go,” she said. “If my actual family doesn't like me, the odds are not in my favor that other people’s families will like me. I’d show you texts from my dad, but by the time I scrolled down far enough to find the chain, our pizza would be cold. I remember though, the last time he got in touch, he messaged me to complain about an op-ed in the Planet about military spending. Which I didn’t even write.” 

That stung the worst. The General could be mad about her paper, that was fine, but only if he had the decency to be mad about one of Lois’s articles. Because that would mean he actually read one and that Lois would count as a victory.

“I don’t know,” Clark replied, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “Your sample size is kind of limited. My mom and dad like you. Lana and Pete like you. I hope this goes without saying, but I like you and just like that we’ve already got more than double your family members on Team Lois, so we’re winning.”

Lois smiled despite herself. Even if the Kent Charm Offensive was a cope, it was a nice cope. 

“Your parents got divorced when you were really young, right?” Clark inquired.

“Not really young,” Lois corrected him. “I was six.”

“Ah, yes,” Clark nodded sagely. “The ripe old age of six.”

He got up to check on the pizza and Lois got up to just…move. They were coming perilously close to having a Serious Conversation and that made her feel antsy.

She pretended to be really interested in a pin board stuck on the wall that had various telephone numbers, streaming account passwords, and random photos pinned up. There was one strip which had been printed from a photo booth and was really washed out, she had to squint to make out the images. It featured Mr. and Mrs. Kent in their larval state - aka, in their twenties. Mr. Kent was rocking swishy ‘90s heartthrob hair and Mrs. Kent had a buzz cut. 

God, they're so cool, Lois thought.

Clark informed her that the food was ready and they sat down to eat. 

After her first bite, Lois looked up at him and said, “You realize what you’ve done?”

“What?” he asked, looking down at her plate in mild panic. “What’s wrong?”

Lois put her pizza down and folded her hands on the table in front of her.

“You’ve turned TV and Takeout,” she replied gravely, “into TV and Clark Cooks. Which does not roll off the tongue with ease.”

“Ha,” Clark smiled in a pleased way and dug into his own pizza and salad. “What about TV and Clark and Lois Make Something Together?”

“No,” Lois already started shaking her head before he’d gotten the words out. “Can’t be, the name sucks and I hate cooking.”

More accurately, she didn’t know how to cook, no one taught her. She could handle a Trader Joe’s frozen dinner that included steps like ‘add rice’ or ‘add chicken,’ but anything beyond that, which involved measuring cups and spoons and seasonings, was simply not in her wheelhouse. She subsisted on takeout, frozen dinners, boxed macaroni and cheese, and cereal for most of her childhood and…now a significant portion of her adulthood as well.

Through a certain lens, this was the ideal lifestyle for someone living in Metropolis. There were so many little street vendors and food trucks and funky pop-up shops, it would be a disgrace to the city not to try them all and patronize these fine local establishments in favor of selfishly cooking for oneself. 

“If I’m hosting sometimes, that only makes sense,” Clark conceded. “Let me know if you have any requests for Thursday.”

“Will do. Who cooked in your house when you were growing up?” Lois asked. “Your mom?”

“They shared,” Clark replied. “My mom was a vegetarian for a while, she’s not comfortable cooking meat - not, ethically, just practically - so my dad does roasts and burgers and stuff.”

Very Stereotypical Dad. The General had been in charge of many things in the course of his life; the grill was not one of them. Sam Lane, when he was able to have dinner with his daughters, preferred taking them out to eat. Nothing fancy, unless it was a special occasion. Usually they’d hit up a pizza parlor with an arcade or a fast food restaurant with a play place. They’d eat their slices or nuggets, then he’d give them each a roll of quarters and tell them to have fun.

It was fun. Lois remembered having fun. 

“We didn’t really do family dinner,” Lois informed Clark, between bites. “My dad worked a lot.” 

“Who watched you and your sister?” he asked. 

Lois shrugged, “It depended on where we were - sometimes other families on base would keep an eye on us, we did camps and after-school programs depending on the time of year. My dad’s family’s in Chicago, we only saw them once in a while on holidays, he was never stationed close enough to make regular trips doable. My mom’s family was…whatever.”

“Oh, yeah?” Clark asked. He had one eyebrow very slightly raised, his head inclined toward her with the most interested look on his face. It was the Kent Charm Offensive, kicked into high gear. And Lois fell for it. 

“My parents didn’t have a regular divorce,” she explained, stabbing somewhat aggressively at a piece of cheese. “It was like…divorce plus. It’s a fucking saga, especially the legal part, but to spare you the gory details - basically, when I was six and my sister was three my mom left.”

The day started normally. Ellen Lane dropped Lois and Lucy off to first grade and daycare, respectively. The daycare providers were the ones who realized something was wrong - Ellen missed pick-up and when they tried calling her cell phone, they got the message that the number was no longer in service.

“ I thought she was dead,” Lois continued bluntly. “My dad thought she was kidnapped, his brain just went straight to terrorism. But, no. She was sick of us, I guess. She left a note, I never read it. Her family didn’t reach out. I don’t know, maybe they figured we just sucked that bad - ”

“Or they were embarrassed,” Clark interrupted. His eyebrows were drawn together in a look of concern. Which was totally unnecessary, Lois was fine, honestly. 

“Maybe,” she allowed. “Either way, after that it was me, Lucy, and the General. Then I went to college, moved to Metropolis, Dad and Lucy were in D.C. They’re both still there, actually, Lucy married a Navy guy, which my dad held against her until they gave him grandkids. Now he’s totally cool with David.” 

Clark’s gaze flickered over to Lois’s phone lying facedown on the table. Doubtless, he was recalling the text thread from hell he’d just read. 

“Your sister must’ve married young,” he observed.

“Oh yeah, she got her Mrs. degree,” Lois said, mockingly. “She was a PoliSci major, me and Dad thought she was going to go to law school next, do policy work around Washington. David proposed on her graduation day and that was the end of that.”

They were married in the spring because Lucy wanted classic D.C. cherry blossoms to be in the backdrop of the photos. Lois wasn’t in any of those pictures; Lucy dropped her from the wedding party because the emotions she expressed fell well short of unmitigated glee.

“Just…be engaged for a while,” Lois said to Lucy when she called to float potential wedding dates. “What’s the rush?”

“Why wait?” Lucy argued. “We know we want to get married, start a family. What’s the point of putting it off? For feminism? For you?”

Lois had no idea why Lucy dragged feminism or herself into the argument, but she wound up defending both. And got herself axed as a potential maid of honor. Practically speaking, that was fine, Lois was freelancing and broke . She couldn’t afford a dress she’d only wear once, or a bachelorette party, any of that. Their dad was the one who bought Lois’s flights out to D.C. to attend the wedding. Lucy thought Lois was being selfish. Lois thought Lucy was being a brat. Sam Lane was probably the person who deserved the credit for Lois being included in the invite list at all. Notably, she did not get a plus one.

Not that she would have brought one, at the time. Now, of course, she would take Clark. He was probably a lot of fun at weddings.

“What does she do now?” Clark asked, snapping Lois back into the present moment. “Your sister.”

“Watches the children and slowly loses her mind,” Lois replied, polishing off the rest of her salad (she’d already thoroughly destroyed two pieces of pizza). “It’s not like your parents, David doesn’t cook. Or clean or any of that, I think he changed his first diaper when Owen - that’s their second one - was, like, six months? And he bragged about what a good dad he was for weeks, like he deserved a fucking trophy.”

“What an asshole,” Clark remarked. 

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Lois muttered. “And, sure he works outside the house, it's long hours - ”

“Oh, that argument does not work on me,” Clark interjected. “Domestic labor has been undervalued and uncompensated since the dawn of recorded history. First rule of farm life: work that needs to get done should get done by whoever can do it. And, like, dude, that’s your kid. Change their diaper.”

“That’s what I said!” Lois exclaimed. “She calls me to complain about him and when I’m like, ‘You’re right, this is fucked up,’ she starts defending him! ‘Oh, well, he says I’m just so much better at it than him, it’s nicer, the kids like when I do it more.’”

“Ugh, the weaponized incompetence,” Clark groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I can’t, I literally can not. Once, at college, I decided that separating lights and darks was meaningless and I ruined a new sweatshirt. Did I refuse to ever do laundry again? Nope! I separate my lights and darks now. Lesson learned, because I am an adult who needs to be able to perform basic life skills and I am also a person with the capacity for taking in and applying new information. You’d think someone who’s in the freaking Navy would pride themselves on competence!”

This was so validating. Sometimes when Lois talked to Lucy, she had flickers of doubt. Maybe her sister was reflecting the majority opinion, maybe she really was doing what she had to make her marriage work. Hearing Clark Kent, of all people, give voice to the same opinions Lois held for years went a long way toward smashing right through all those doubts.

“You’d think!” Lois agreed. “But she lets him walk all over her because she’s terrified that if she makes his life less than perfect, he’s going to leave her and the split will ruin the children. Because I’m ruined apparently.”

Lois’s voice wobbled very slightly on the last sentence. She cleared her throat; must’ve been a stray piece of basil.

Clark got up and sat next to her, rather than across from her. His right hand hovered uncertainly for a second before he rested it on the back of her chair.

“That’s not true,” he said, extremely kindly. “I’m sorry you went through so much with your mom - that you’re going through so much with your sister. You’re not…I said it already. I think you’re awesome. Beyond awesome. Incredible.”

Damning with faint praise was more Lois’s style. It was probably why she and Perry got along so well; Lois never expected gushing compliments from anybody and she didn't need external validation to get through her day. Words of affirmation were almost an anti-love language for her.

Coming from Clark, though, she didn’t mind as much.

“Thanks,” she said, managing a faint half-smile. “You’re a very solid dude.”

“Aww, thank you,” Clark replied. Then his smile turned a little wicked. “Also, lest we forget, you’re Superman’s favorite.”

It was the perfect kind of teasing to snap Lois out of a potential bad mood. They cleared away the dinner dishes and dug around in the Kent’s freezer until they found some ice cream bars. (They weren’t McPherson’s Dairy good, but they were still good.)

Clark fed the dogs while Lois scrolled the Kents streaming subscriptions, looking for something to watch. It had been a weird day and she was in the mood for a weird comedy. She settled on Clue .

Once the dogs were eating, Clark settled to his usual place on the couch. Lois eyed the empty cushion next to him, calculating that she had approximately five minutes before Otis filled it. 

“Would it be okay if I…” she vaguely nodded toward his armpit, “get in there?”

Clark looked surprised at the inquiry, but not creeped out or anything, which Lois took to be a good sign. 

“Sure,” he said, waving her over. “The view from this side of the couch is excellent.”

“Nice,” Lois replied, scooting over to Clark.

Am I gonna do it? I’m gonna do it.

Before she could psych herself out, Lois curled up against his side, leaning her head on Clark’s chest. Oh, yeah, this was nice. Firm, but comfortable. Like the perfect mattress. Clark put his arm around her, his hand resting on her leg, close to her knee.

“This good?” he asked and she could feel his arm tense against her side, ready to pull away at the smallest indication that she did not want his hand there.

“This is good,” she assured him. Then smiled. ‘Awesome, even. Just like me!”

“Just like you,” Clark agreed. He relaxed his arm so that it was flush against her body, a pleasant weight against her hip. They settled in to watch the movie as the sun set on Smallville.

Chapter Text

Lois managed to be completely normal through the whole movie, she chatted with Clark’s parents when they got back, and went up to bed at a normal (for her) hour. She conked out pretty quickly and slept like a baby for most of the night. The trouble started when she got up at 5AM to use the bathroom and couldn’t get back to sleep because her brain kept cycling through images of Clark in some kind of This Is Your Crush montage and Lois did not appreciate it. 

She’d get into a comfortable position, the world would go fuzzy around the edges then BAM! Clark’s face in the firelight looking Officially Handsome. Or BAM! Clark shirtless in the pool looking Legitimately Hot. Or BAM! Clark at the kitchen table, looking into her eyes and telling her she was incredible like it was really important that she believed him. 

As a result, Lois had been tossing and turning for nearly an hour as the sky went from black to the purplish red that anticipated the coming of the dawn. Sure, she could get up and start the day bright and early, but she was on vacation, dammit, and that entitled her to extra sleep. Even if she wasn’t actually sleeping, but was instead overanalyzing and recontextualizing her relationship with Clark in a way that would do neither of them any favors.

On the face of it, this was not some sort of outrageous or bizarre occurrence. If a hypothetical, non-Lois person had a crush on Clark Kent, she would consider it to be part of the natural order. On paper, he ticked a lot of boxes on many people’s Boyfriend Material List. He was a good-looking guy with a stable job that provided healthcare. He was smart, respectful, sensitive, and funny. He loved animals and kids, he successfully maintained long-term friendships, and had a good relationship with his parents. If someone was looking for a caring, stable guy, they’d do well to get him on lock immediately.

The problem in this particular situation (as Lois saw it) was that practically none of Clark’s many virtues were on her own relationship checklist. Mostly because she didn’t have a checklist and was not on the lookout for a long-term relationship. And, okay, this was pure speculation, but Clark was such a steady, solid guy, she assumed he didn’t do flings or friends with benefits.

While she quasi-routinely engaged in the former, Lois was extremely leery of the latter. Mostly because she was so bad at friendship that if the benefits stopped being…well, beneficial, it could be nearly impossible to go back to the way things were. And she wasn’t willing to risk her friendship with Clark just because it took her almost a year of knowing the guy to realize he was hot. 

And that was another thing, Lois thought as she stifled a groan into her pillow and rolled around for the umpteenth time. It wasn’t like this was a fork in the road that was entirely hers to take - this might not even be a fork in the first place. Clark was, after all, an autonomous human being who did not exist merely to react to Lois’s impulses. He was a main character in his own life and, as such, was entitled to have a say in who he dated. 

Objectively, nothing materially changed between the two of them, other than the scales falling from Lois’s eyes somewhere between THE T-SHIRT and THE CUDDLE. Wait, no scratch that. Their proximity on the couch was not an all-caps situation. They had cuddled, yes, but it was an extremely platonic cuddle. Definitely not a friendship-altering cuddle. 

It was completely within the realm of possibility that Lois wasn’t on Clark’s radar in terms of not-exclusively-friendship relationships. If nothing else, she might be too short. Once, she connected with a dude on a dating app who (very kindly) rejected her due to a blanket rule about not dating anyone under 5’8. He said his neck and back couldn’t take the bending that casual kissing required and it made previous partners feel rejected, so he just avoided that messiness altogether. 

Obviously, Clark liked her, whether or not he like -liked her. He hung out with her after work, invited her to bunk at his childhood home for a week, introduced her to his family and friends, came up with a whole itinerary of activities so she wouldn’t be bored, you have to be more than a little invested in another person to do all that. Still. Qualities one found endearing in a buddy were not always qualities one might find endearing in another context.

Frankly, Lois figured if Clark was looking for a short girl to date, she probably wouldn’t be the short girl he picked; he’d probably go for someone who was less mean to him. 

Part of her Oh No, He’s Hot journey of discovery included Clark’s change in demeanor once they touched down in Smallville. It wasn’t all T-SHIRTs and tank tops, it was the way he carried himself and he explicitly said that he didn’t feel comfortable being this version of himself (which he also described as his real self) at work. It hadn’t escaped her notice that he didn’t fully relax when it was just the two of them after work either. 

A week ago, at TV and Takeout, it never would have occurred to Lois to bridge the gap between them two of them on her couch (which was nowhere near Otis-sized). She never considered whether or not he might have larger-than-normal biceps under his button-downs and sweaters. She never asked follow-up questions about PeteRoss and My Friend Lana. She never considered that his parents might have had a meet-cute romance worthy of a Netflix holiday special. 

Had they really been friends at all before this trip?

Okay, that was maybe a little extreme. Lois couldn’t help wondering which version of Clark would she get when they were home. Country Clark? City Clark? Some hybrid version of the two of them who cleaned up his language, but maybe wore t-shirts occasionally? Would that make him Suburban Clark?

A soft knock on the door startled her so much she almost leapt out of bed. There was a loud whisper from the other side as Clark (currently still operating as Country Clark) asked her, “Hey, Lois, you awake?”

“Yes,” she whispered back, pushing off the covers and padding to the door, which she opened a crack. “Everything okay?”

Clark was barefoot, in loose-fitting pajama shorts and a tank top. He smiled at her in a thoroughly adorable way, cocking his head to the side and asked, “Do you want to watch the sun come up?”

There was some merit to Clark’s own observations that she wasn’t being her most Metropolis self out here either. If he’d shown up at her apartment at 6AM asking if she wanted to watch the sunrise, she would have had exactly two things to say: No and, Who let you up here?

Instead she nodded and didn’t even bother ducking into the bathroom to brush her teeth before she followed him outside - not just outside, but onto the freaking roof.

The porch roof. But still. 

Clark spotted her on their journey out one of the upstairs windows. He settled in next to her and they sat in relative silence, watching the sky turned from red to pink to orange as the sun made its way over the line of the horizon, dappling the fields with light. It was really pretty.

The breeze ruffled Lois’s bedhead, raising goosebumps on her arms and legs. She drew her legs up and folded her arms. 

“You cold?” Clark asked, glancing down at her. He half-raised his arm in an invitation to come closer. An invitation Lois accepted.

Clark must run hot because he was deeply toasty as Lois snuggled against him. Looking down at his arm around her, she noticed his skin was enviably clear of blemishes. No moles, freckles, patches of eczema, not even a scar from some random childhood accident. By contrast, Lois’s right arm (which was completely buried under Clark’s) still boasted two fairly prominent scars leftover from the surgery she needed following a broken arm. She was eight and took a bad landing jumping off the swings.

“Have you ever broken a bone?” Lois asked, eyes on the horizon.

Above her, Clark shook his head, curls flopping over his forehead.

“Nope,” he replied, brushing his hair back with his left hand. “Lucky. And cautious.”

The latter he said with a hint of a smile in his voice. Lois looked up at him and squinted, trying to imagine lil’ Clark from the picture with the dog Shelby taking a flying leap off a swing at highest apex. 

Yeah, maybe if he was wearing a bike helmet, knee pads, and wrist braces.

“I can’t see you as much of a daredevil,” Lois concurred, remembering the way he avoided the thrill rides at the fair.

Because they were so close together, when Clark laughed, Lois could feel the vibrations in his chest rumbling against her back. 

“Yeah, my dad used to call the hammer loop on his jeans the Clark Handle,” he recalled. “I was big on holding hands, but whenever we were out somewhere - the hardware store or tractor supply, whatever - and he needed to use both hands, I’d just grab hold of the loop, stick to him like glue. I had a…sort of pathological fear of getting lost when I was a kid.”

“They didn’t need to put you in a child leash?” she asked teasingly.

“Nah,” Clark shook his head. “Pete, on other hand, was a runner. His parent’s would have the leash tied on the back of his overalls, looped through the shoulder straps. There’s this infamous story from when he was…maybe not even two, but he unclipped himself and just took off down the road with no bottoms on. He made it halfway here before his dad found him in the truck and took him home. Baby Clark would never.”

Baby Lois might have. Not quite as dramatic as the PeteRoss story, but her dad would occasionally recount the time she was also not quite two and escaped her crib when she was supposed to be taking a nap. She threw a bunch of stuffies on the floor to act as a landing mat, shimmied down the bars and toddled out into the driveway before the neighbors saw her and walked her back to the house, much to her parents' chagrin. Allegedly; she had no memory of this incident. 

She had actual memories of gleefully disappearing into racks of clothing at K-Mart and hiding while her mother called her name, increasingly frantically. She thought she was absolutely fucking hilarious. Ellen Lane did not see the humor in the situation. 

Ooh, maybe Ellen’s Great Disappearance was payback for all those K-Mart trips. There’s an angle you’ve never considered.

“Did your parents lose you at a Super Wal-Mart once or something?” Lois asked. “They found you huddled in the back near the leftover holiday decorations, mute and shaking among the creepy Santa animatronics. Is that a core memory?”

Clark shook his head, “I never gave them the chance to. I was clingy in a way that I now realize was deeply annoying.” 

The sun was starting to come up in earnest. The sky was turning blue as sunrise gave way to daylight. Neither Clark nor Lois moved. 

“I used to have these recurring nightmares about getting lost as a kid,” Clark continued. “They’d start out, we’d be out somewhere - somewhere normal, like the grocery store or my elementary school - and I’d get distracted by something. Only I’d have this sense that I shouldn’t wander off because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to find my parents. But y’know. Nightmare. So I’d wander, then look up and they’d be gone and I’d panic. Eventually wake up in a cold sweat and run off into their room to sleep for the rest of the night.”

He cringed at the memory, “That must’ve been fun for them. It’s four a.m. and I’m just leaping onto the bed between them. I should probably apologize for all that.”

That was…not a possibility for Baby Lois. Her parents had a very strict No Kids in the Bed rule. They weren’t mean about it, just firm. If she woke up from a nightmare they’d sit with her, get her a glass of water, whatever, but only after they walked her back to her room following an anxious knock on the bedroom door.

“I don’t know,” Lois replied to the notion that Clark owed his parents’ an apology (if he gave one, she had a hunch neither Mr. nor Mrs. Kent would accept). “Your parents seem like pretty chill people. How did that go on for?”

Clark hesitated. “Um. Longer than it probably should have, to be honest. ‘Til I was, like…eight? It wasn’t every night -” 

“Dude, it’s fine,” Lois interrupted him, tilting her head back to look at him. Clark actually looked worried, like she might think less of him for having once been a kid who had nightmares. “I’m not going to get in my time machine and announce to your first grade class that you’re a big crybaby who’s scared of the dark or whatever.”

“Can you imagine?” Clark mused. “Having the power of time travel and using it to bully adult friends when they were children?” 

“Oh, yeah, with me as an adult too?” Lois replied. “Like, I show up at my big age and just barge into a classroom and start straight-up making fun of some little kid who has no idea who I am? It would be slightly iconic until I was arrested for trespassing on school property.”

“There’s simply no need for that -  being an adult, I now have adult nightmares for you to make fun of,” Clark pointed out. “No time machine needed. Only the finest nightmare material, the greatest hits of 18+ nightmares, real classics. Like, it’s the last day of the semester and I have to take a final for a class I didn’t go to. And it’s a math class.”

Lois wiggled her arm out from beneath Clark and feigned drinking a cup of tea with her pinkie up. 

“Ah, yes,” she said, in an affected, upper-crust accent, like full-on Waynes of Gotham. “Final Exam Panic, fully five years out of college. Exquisite.”

“Only the best for you, girl,” Clark grinned. He lifted his hand and ghosted his fingers over one of the scars on her arm. “That from a break?”

“It is!” Lois said proudly, flexing her puny bicep. “I was at the playground, trying to show off in front of a bunch of kids I didn’t really know - I guess I was asserting dominance? Anyway, we were leaping off the swings like it was a high jump and for a second I was, like, airborne. The hang-time was amazing, it’s probably as close as I’ll ever come to knowing what flying feels like - what?”

“What?” Clark asked, blinking.

Lois squinted up at him. “Your face did a thing.”

It had. For a split second there was this look in Clark’s eyes that was almost doubtful? Maybe ‘doubt’ wasn’t the word she was looking for. Wistful? Regretful? Something-ful? Well, she swore that for a second she flew, whether he believed her or not. 

"Anyway,” she continued, “I fought a war with gravity - which I was winning for a hot second - then gravity got the last laugh. I landed very awkwardly and just…snap, crackle, pop, basically. Compound fracture.”

Lois could swear she felt Clark’s stomach seize up. He looked pale, then green, and appeared as though he might actually throw up.

“Oh my God,” Clark closed his eyes and swallowed back a gag. “Oh, that’s horrifying. And you were all alone? Just you and other random kids?”

“Well, I mean, Superman wasn’t in business back then,” Lois pointed out. “There were some parents, they called the ambulance. I don’t remember any pain, but that might have been shock? If that’s how shock works. The worst part was it was June and I spent the whole summer in a cast. No beach. No swimming. Worst summer ever.”

Clark very gently rubbed his fingertips over the scars on her arm, like he could buff them away though TLC. It was cute, but completely unnecessary. 

“I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of my skin accessories,” Lois said, immediately vowing never to use the term ‘skin accessories’ again because it was a disgusting thing to say. “All through middle school, they featured in various versions of my origin story. In one account I was mauled by a bear. In another, I saved my baby sister from a dog attack. In a third I got them in a fight in juvie.”

Clark laughed so loudly that Lois was pretty sure that, if any of the Kearns horses were asleep, the sound would have woken them up.

“I’m sorry,” she said indignantly. “For the bear story, you’re like, ‘Huh, sounds implausible, but I’ll accept it.’ The juvie story is the one you’re like, ‘No way, never happened?’”

“Yes,” Clark squeaked, wiping tears out of his eyes. “I’m just picturing little Lois squaring up to some random…eighth grader, like, ‘I’ve experienced things you can never imagine,’ and meanwhile this other kid is just, ‘...I asked if you needed help finding your locker.’”

Well, when he put it like that, Lois also started cackling. As much as she was a short girl now, she had been pint-sized in middle school. Not that she let a little (pun fully intended) thing like that get in her way when it came to asserting dominance. Then or now.

“ You don’t want to know what I’ve seen,’ ” Lois added, in an imitation of the gravely smoker's voice Clark affected when recounting her misbegotten youth. “And he’s like, ‘Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s…’”

“Exactly!” Clark exclaimed. “Imagine, if your dad was stationed near Smallville for some weird reason and you rolled to SJH with your tales of wrestling bears and I’m like, four years out from no longer routinely sleeping in my parents’ bed. I would’ve been like, ‘Holy shit, this girl’s amazing. I can never speak to her.’”

“You would’ve believed me?” Lois asked, eyes shining with mirth.

“When I was twelve? Maybe about juvie,” Clark said, dimples just…dimpling in his cheeks from how wide he was smiling. “The bear thing I think I would’ve called your bluff. I probably would’ve asked you to specify what kind of bear because, you know, black bears, they’re not known to be aggressive - ”

“I think I could hug a bear,” Lois declared with absolutely confidence. “I think they’d let me. I think if I saw a bear, it would let me hug it. That might be my most toxic trait.”

“Is this why you want to ride a bull?” Clark asked her, a lightly going on behind his eyes. “You think you have this kinship with all the animal kingdom that they’ll just…let you ride them? Like they’re your His Dark Materials daemons, only on a larger scale?”

“Is that one of your nerd things?”

“It’s crossed over into the mainstream!”

It was actively daytime as this argument continued. It was not focused on anything in particular, sometimes they dipped back into which of Lois’s scar stories was most probable, which large animal was safest to hug when encountered in the wild, and whether or not any of Clark’s nerdy interests were actually mainstream. They paused only when Mrs. Kent whistled up at them from the porch.

“Breakfast!” she called and did not say another word before she went back into the house.

“Oh, shit,” Lois muttered as she disentangled herself from Clark to crawl back inside. 

The two of them were dressed incredibly similarly, in shorts and tank tops, only this wasn’t really Lois's home and she figured she should at least put a bra on and brush her teeth before she presented herself to Clark’s parents. He got a pass on seeing Lois in her full schlubby glory, the lucky guy.

“I’m going to wash up, apologize to your mom for me being late,” Lois said, already half-turned to go back to her bedroom. “Do we have plans for the day?”

“Working on that,” Clark acknowledged. “I’d say it’s a surprise, but that would be a lie - I really front-loaded this trip. Worst case scenario, it’s the last night of the fair. They have a demolition derby this afternoon - okay! Okay, we’ll do that.”

Lois could not deny that her face was doing a thing. And that thing was Unmitigated Glee. Plans made, she marched off to the shower with a spring in her step, the anxiety of 5AM completely banished.

Maybe it didn’t matter if she had a crush on Clark. If they could banter with their usual fluidity, cuddle sometimes, that would be a good next step in their platonic friendship relationship. Their whole porch…encounter (for lack of a better word), was probably a good litmus test for Romance and they’d failed pretty spectacularly.

Genuinely, if this was a romcom, the Hero and Heroine would have cozied up on the roof and the Heroine (Lois, in this case) would have stared dreamily out over the corn and…other corn and said, in a breathless, wispy voice, “Isn’t it a beautiful sunrise?” 

And the Hero (Clark) would have smirked, a manly, knowing smirk and said, in a growly, throaty voice, “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.”

And then Heroine!Lois would have looked at Hero!Clark only to find his eyes locked on her.

“You’re not looking at the sunrise.”

“Like I said. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.”

Then they’d make out. 

What they would not do is talk about their friends running pantsless down the road as toddlers, nearly induce vomiting with stories about serious bodily injury, or argue about what animal (bear, tiger, or hippo) was least likely to kill you if you ran toward it with open arms and an open heart. 

Which was probably for the best. Lois preferred dumbass conversations about hugging bears to cheesy Hallmark dialogue anyway. It was nice to actually watch a sunrise rather than gaze tenderly into Clark’s eyes. Also he had a really fun laugh, loud, and unaffected, like a kid laughing. Romance Heroes didn’t laugh, the most joy they were allowed to display involved slightly unclenching their jaws. 

It was with this attitude of Romance is Dead, Long Live Platonic Friendships that Lois went down to breakfast (yogurt, homemade granola, and fruit bowls). Clark was finished already, sitting at the table with his phone in hand. He’d gotten dressed for the day and looked up when she entered the kitchen, an anticipatory smile on his face. His jaw was not even close to being clenched.

“Okay, so we’ll still hit up demolition derby,” he promised, a gleam in his eye. “But Lana wants to go out-out tonight and I was thinking…remember that bar I texted you about before we left?”

Lois did not, but it didn’t matter because Clark continued without stopping. 

“Well,” he said proudly. “It’s not hugging a bear or anything, but if you’re up for it, tonight you, Lois Lane, will have the opportunity to test your mettle against a bull. A mechanical one, but what do you say?”

Lois marched right up to him, grabbed Clark by the collar of his t-shirt and brought their faces nose-to-nose. The mist from her breath fogged up his glasses and she thanked God she brushed her teeth before she came down.

“Bring. It. On,” she declared, knowing full well that she sounded and looked absolutely demented in a manner not befitting a Romantic Heroine.  

Luckily, this wasn’t a romance, and Clark didn’t mind at all. 

Chapter Text

Clark knew he was in trouble when Lana and Pete started talking at the same time.

“This is an intervention,” Pete informed him at exactly the same moment that Lana said, “This is not an intervention.”

It had been a really good day so far. No catastrophes (cross fingers!) that merited his attention, he got fully six hours of sleep the night before, he inhaled a not insignificant amount of diesel fumes watching cars get pulverized. In short: It had been such a banger day that Clark should have expected something like this and not been blindsided like an idiot as was his current reality.

Lois was upstairs napping, since (in her words), ‘Clark woke me up at the ass-crack of dawn,’ and she needed a recharge before heading out for a night on the town. They could have all been recharging. Clark was looking forward to that, actually. He fully expected he and Pete would settle in to their favorite downtime activity of watching old Vine (R.I.P) compilations on YouTube while Lana scrolled her phone with her earbuds in because she hated watching Vine compilations, but hated being left out even more.

Instead, he was sitting in the back of an old pick-up truck while his friends speculated about the most intimate details of his personal life and physical anatomy, all while insisting that this grilling was in his best interests and they were just trying to be good wingmen. Wingwomen. Wingpeople. Whatever.

Lois’s state of unconsciousness was the whole reason they were able to get this candid with him. Lana and Pete had gotten it into their heads that Clark had a golden opportunity to enter a Relationship and that he was either too stupid to see it or willfully blowing his chances. 

The truth was: Neither! There was no chance, Clark wasn’t an idiot and he was squandering nothing . Lois was the most straightforward person he knew, if there was even a glimmer of something like Relationship Potential between them, Clark had no doubt that she would have looked at him across the couch during an early Takeout and TV session and asked him, “You want to hook up?”

And he would have probably stammered like Porky Pig before confirming that yes, he would, please and thank you. And if she wasn’t completely repulsed by his lack of game, they may have engaged in the kind of things that two mutually interested consenting adults did and he would have wondered how he got so lucky.

Except he wasn’t that lucky and the only time Lois expressed any interest in him at all was when she was wine-drunk and half-insensible. Didn’t exactly go a long way toward making a fella feel wanted. It’s not that Clark expected to be romanced (certainly not by Lois Freaking Lane), but he would have liked a little more than a slurred invitation to spend the night when she was more than halfway to La-La-Land.

He hadn’t told that last part to Lana and Pete (no one knew about it except for Otis who was awakened by Clark muffling a scream into his pillow) because it would only add fuel to the fire of imaginary chemistry they decided existed between him and Lois.

“All I’m saying is I’ve been flirting like a demon with that girl since the moment I met her,” Lana pointed out. “And nothing. We shared a shirt and I didn’t get anything out of her except a smile. I swear, she’s all in on you.”

“You should shoot your shot,” Pete said bluntly.

“There is no shot to shoot,” Clark said defensively, shoulders hitched to somewhere around his ears. He was about thirty seconds away from literally melding into the rusted metal body of the truck. “Lois and I are friends. Buddies. Pals. I don’t know how else to put it to you, she’s not interested in me. She’s out of my league, first of all, I’d be punching way outside my weight class - ”

Pete snorted, “You don’t have a weight class, my guy.”

“It’s a metaphor!” Clark snapped, hands going into his hair, gripping his curls hard enough to straighten them. “You think I brought her out to Smallville, Kansas to, what, seduce her?” 

“You woke her up to watch the fucking sunrise,” Lana said, looking at him frankly. “Sunrises are inherently romantic. You should’ve texted me, I could have got my clarinet out of storage and serenaded you.”

“She was already up,” Clark corrected her. “I could hear her tossing and turning through the walls, I figured it’d be nicer to look at something pretty than staring at the ceiling being miserable. Also, since when has the clarinet been romantic?”

"It would have enhanced the mood,” Lana insisted. “Also it’s the only instrument I know how to play, so there’s that.” 

“There was no mood - ”

“Listen, Clark,” Pete cut him off, sliding down from his perch on the roof of the truck to stand beside him. “I know you’ve got some self-esteem issues - ”

“I don’t - ”

“You do,” Pete asserted. “And this is a safe space, but that’s way too much to be diving into today. All I aim to do is make a little progress on getting you to accept that: ‘Hey! I, Clark Kent, am a great guy with a lot to offer people other than hauling trucks off ‘em and digging buried towns out from under avalanches. I deserve to have a personal life!’”

“I have a personal life,” Clark insisted, gesturing vaguely around to encompass the farm and the rotted out cars, and his two best friends in the world who were currently driving him absolutely crazy. Like. How much more personal could it get? “This, this right here is my personal life.”

“Then that’s small and sad,” Lana told him, which, like. Ouch. “You can’t operate on two modes, either saving the world or watching lost media on your parents’ couch.”

“Three modes, I also write,” Clark replied irritably. He narrowed his eyes at her and said, “And, not to dredge up old wounds - ”

“You absolutely can,” Pete interjected serenely. “This is a safe space.”

“But you were - and I’m gonna quote you - a heinous bitch to me the other night,” Clark reminded Lana. “Because I left the fair early. Now you’re telling me I don’t do enough? Make it make sense, Lana. Make it make sense.”

“That’s different,” she said, providing no further explanation about why it was different. “Dating Lois would be a net positive for you - and me because then she’d come around more and I’m obsessed with her! Only she’s clearly smitten with you.”

“She is not,” Clark replied, taking his glasses off so he could rub his eyes. “You’ve known her, what, four days? I see her at work damn near every day and if she had any interest in me that wasn’t capital-F Friendship, don’t you think I’d notice?”

“Nope,” Pete replied flatly. “That’s the self-esteem issues that we’re not tackling today. And yeah, it’s only been four days or whatever, but she is interested and we noticed. Which is why we’re having this intervention - ” 

“It’s not an intervention,” Lana cut in. “Clark, she asked both of us if you were seeing anyone. She asked me if you wanted kids. She’s clearly testing the waters!”

That was…okay, that might, in some circumstances, imply interest. Just not in these circumstances.

“Lois doesn’t want kids, she doesn’t even like kids,” Clark pointed out. He was impressed by how well she’d gotten along with Pete’s little sisters, but since they were mostly teenagers, maybe they didn’t count as ‘kids’ in her perception.

“Yeah, duh, clearly,” Lana replied, rolling her eyes. “Like I said, testing the waters, feeling the situation out, checking for availability, compatibility, all that - ”

“Or,” Clark suggested. “She was asking questions because that’s what Lois does. She’s an investigative reporter. A - a professional question-asker.” 

“Mmm-hmm,” Lana intoned, one eyebrow quirked. She was sitting on the wheel well and leaned closer to Clark with an annoyingly smug expression on her face. “And if she was just asking questions, she’d just ask you right? Like, if she had zero emotional investment in the response, why ask me and Pete separate from you?”

That was…an interesting point. Maybe not a salient point, but interesting. 

“Is it because she doesn’t know about… Whoosh?” Lana asked, angling her hand at a forty-five degree angle for emphasis. “Is that why you’re so hell-bent on insisting she’s not interested? And don’t try to tell me you’re not interested because that’d be a lie and you’re a shitty liar - which brings me back around to my first question: Is it about Whoosh?”

It was not about Woosh. It was mostly not about Whoosh. Okay, it was a little bit about Whoosh.

Clark didn’t like to dwell on this fact, because it made him extremely uncomfortable, but if he had chosen a different path in life - namely not putting on a bright blue costume with a big red cape and zipping around the world, intervening in disaster situations in the social media age…he probably would have told Lois what he could do. Because they were friends, he considered them close friends. And the people closest to him knew about him.

Clark didn’t have qualms about letting Lois know he was a weirdo with powers (she already knew he was a weirdo generally). He did have qualms about letting her know he was Superman . A guy who could fly was definitely unusual, but not necessarily newsworthy. Especially if said guy was keeping a low profile about it and asked her to keep his abilities off the record, she’d probably respect it, on an ethical level. After all, what was to be gained by outing some random dude in the national press? The potential harm would exponentially outweigh the good.

Only Clark wasn’t living his occasional daydream about keeping himself to himself and only using his abilities for things like rapidly cooling off room-temperature white wine. He made a choice to do more, to be more visible. To help as much as he could, which, when one could do a lot, meant helping a lot. In ways that were sometimes hyper-visible. Newsworthy.

Him being who he was, Lois being who she was…it would be unethical for her not to tell the world about him. To end the speculation about who he was, what his purpose was, what he was, all that stuff people down in the comments sections on Superman articles wondered about. (Yes, he knew it was always a bad idea to read the comments. He also always read the comments. Pete may have been on to something about the self-esteem issues.)

Evidently, his silence spoke more eloquently than words could because, before Clark actually replied, Lana looked over at Pete and nodded decisively. “Told you.”

Apparently this was a conversation they’d had before. So much for his hard and fast rule about not eavesdropping because Clark felt like he was playing catch-up in his own life and he could have used the context.

Pete dropped to sit near Clark, propping his legs up and crossing them over Clark’s legs like he was trapping him in the endless hell that was this conversation. Sure, Clark could have gotten up and gone away (was even now keeping an ear out, half-hoping for a minor catastrophe, like a lost dog or something to use an excuse to get the fuck out of there), but leaving in the middle of a talk with his friends was…y’know. Rude. 

“You can date Lois without telling her everything about you,” Pete advised him. “Lots of people have hobbies their partners aren’t involved in. I’ll bet if you ran a weekly D&D group at the Metropolis Public Library she wouldn’t want to know a damn thing about it.”

“Okay, but this isn’t a hobby,” Lana said. “It’s more like…a second job where you’re constantly on-call. And that’s flaky and annoying if you don’t know what’s up.”

“Even if you do know what’s up,” Clark remarked, shooting Lana a pointed look.

She kicked him directly in the kneecap. “Like I said, I’m working on it. Goddamn, am I not allowed to have a character arc? Jesus Christ, Clark, let me evolve. Anyway, I get it. I still think you should make a move, but I do get why you’re worried.”

“Is it about your down-there, too?” Pete asked speculatively.

Clark snapped his head back so hard he shattered the rear windshield of the truck (sorry in advance to Pa). Glass showered all over Clark’s shoulders, but avoided hitting Lana and Pete, who dodged out of the way, their hands over their eyes. 

“Why would you say that?” Lana demanded, hoping over the side of the bed, using the long-deflated tires to ease her progress to the earth below. “Why would you ever say that?”

“This is a safe space!” Pete declared for the third time, swinging a leg over the side of the truck.

“You saying that over and over doesn’t make it a safe space!” Lana exclaimed.

“I don’t feel safe!” Clark added, standing a good distance away from them as he took his shirt off and dusted glass out of his hair. 

The shirt was done-for, he didn’t want to risk putting it in the wash and getting tiny glass bits in everyone’s laundry. However, that was a secondary consideration to the blush that was spreading from his neck to his ears to suffuse his entire face a worrying shade of red.

“Look what you did to Clark!” Lana scolded Pete, marching up to Clark to fan ineffectually at him with her hands. “I think you killed him - I think he’s going to die of embarrassment.”

Pete had the decency to look a tiny bit chagrined, but he just shrugged, like this was an unfortunate, but inevitable occurrence. It was definitely the former, but Clark had serious doubts as to the inevitability of Pete’s line of questions. Then, incredibly, Pete somehow made it worse.

“I mean, I’ve seen you naked,” he said, like this was a perfectly normal and reasonable comment to make when discussing a friend’s lack of a love life. “Everything looks how you’d expect, but, since this is a safe space - ”

“Stop fucking say that!” Clark dropped his shirt on the ground and put his hands over his ears, like that would make a difference.

“I’m completely open and non-judgmental about the possibility that, hey, maybe things aren’t what you’d expect,” Pete concluded. “And that’s completely valid.”

Lana stopped wafting warm air vaguely in Clark’s direction and instead walked over to Pete. She very calmly took his hands and looked directly into his eyes.

“You need to stop reading online relationship advice columns,” she said - nay, demanded. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And you’re slowly murdering Clark.” 

That was an exaggeration; already Clark could feel the heat leaving his face and hoped his skin color was returning to something approaching normal.

“I’m a goner,” Clark replied weakly. “Someone get Hulk Hogan’s wife and kids on the phone.”

“He’s fine,” Pete said dismissively, extricating his hands from Lana’s grip. “If he can quote wrestling memes, he’s good.”

“Look,” Clark said, bending to retrieve his shirt. “I appreciate…whatever the fuck this is. I understand it’s meant with love, so that is the spirit in which I will receive  it - ”

“See,” Pete said smugly to Lana. “He gets it.” 

“But I am also very done with this entire conversation,” Clark straightened up and folded his shirt, a ridiculous action, since he was going to throw it away immediately. “So if y’all could wrap it up and if we could just be normal the rest of the evening, I’d really appreciate it.”

Pete needed no more prompting than that.

“Shoot your shot!” he said, evoking the tried and true five-paragraph essay technique of repeating one’s thesis at the conclusion. “You’re a great guy! Lois is definitely into you! So go for it!”

Pete added a pat on the back and double thumbs-up for emphasis, then turned on his heel, walking back toward the house with a spring in his step, confident that he’d just done the Lord’s work. 

Lana was a little more circumspect. 

“Glasses,” she said, gingerly retrieving them from where they’d fallen among the glass littering the truck bed. Clark put them back on and she looked up at him, clearly not done yet.

“Here’s what I want from you,” she said, like this was a negotiation in which Clark was, under no circumstances, allowed to set the terms. “I’m not asking for you to ask Lois to...marry you within forty-eight hours anything, this is not Love is Blind. What I would like, though, is for you to accept the possibility that she might like you in a more-than-friends way. I think you are doing yourself and her a disservice to keep on playing the denial game, like you’re being noble. It’s not cute, is what I’m saying. Which is a real travesty because you’re a natural cutie-patootie. I think that’s why she likes you.”

She doesn’t like me like that, was  the response borne of Clark’s first impulse, but he kept it to himself since it was clearly not what Lana wanted to hear. The two of them followed Pete back up to the house in silence - Lois met them on the porch, with inquiries about the vibe of McKenna’s Taphouse and whether or not she needed to wear make-up.

“What happened to your shirt?” she asked Clark, almost as an afterthought, as he sidled around her to get inside and change.

Clark made some excuse about it getting wrecked in the Car Graveyard (not a lie!) and…okay, maybe his friends successfully brainwashed him, maybe Lois was still kind of tired, but she wasn’t looking at his face when he replied. She was looking…elsewhere. 

And, he considered (apparently he was susceptible to brainwashing) she had been more physically…physical with him over the past forty-eight hours than in the past six months since they'd struck up a friendship. When they sat together on the couch, she hadn’t been drinking then. That was nice. Really, really nice. And it must have been nice for both of them because she accepted a snuggle from him on the porch roof that morning. 

The porch roof might have been a fluke because she was cold and he was always warm, but…the couch maybe wasn’t. He hadn’t dramatically analyzed why she’d been down to cuddle the night before, he’d just been generally pleased that she initiated cuddling. 

Because while, yeah, to answer Pete’s mortifying question from earlier, things were basically as one would expect “down there” (calling it “down there” like a maiden aunt in a 1940s screwball comedy might made the whole situation that much more mortifying), Clark was, at the end of the day, a snugglebug. If routine cuddling became part of TV and Takeout, Clark would count Thursday as his very favorite day of the week. It didn’t occur to him to expect more. Did he want more? Sure he was (more or less) human, he definitely had dreams and desires that would never reasonably be fulfilled.

However. Was there, as Lana said, a teeny, tiny, infinitesimal possibility that there might be a potential for more than couch cuddles in his and Lois’s futures?  

Clark replaced his shirt and rejoined everyone on the porch, where they declared that they were ready to head out (McKenna’s was not the kind of place that required make-up). Lois looked up at him and smiled and…goddamn it. It was like he said to Pete earlier: he was a goner.

Lana went on and on about how pretty Lois was at the fire pit and he, of course agreed. But it was more than that. She was beautiful, but it went way deeper than just looks for Clark. She was smart, she was hilarious, and blunt, and irreverent. During this trip he learned she could be insecure, but she just kept plowing forward anyway. For fuck’s sake, she was worried his parents wouldn’t like her, but kept on being so thoroughly and wonderfully herself. 

He was lucky to have her as a friend, let alone a girlfriend. And, yeah, okay, maybe it was a lot about Whoosh. About the Superman of it all. It was one thing if he was her friend and colleague, Clark, who didn’t tell her about his outrageous side hustle. (Volunteer gig? He wasn’t kidding when he told Lois Superman didn’t get paid.) If he was her boyfriend? If he was living the dream, sleeping beside her at night, waking up next to her in the morning and he didn’t tell her? That felt worse than a lie of omission, it felt like deception. And Clark couldn’t bring himself to deceive someone he cared about that much. 

So yeah, Lana won this round. He accepted that Lois potentially liked him in a more-than-friends way. Only…it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t going to go anywhere. It couldn’t. Not when he cared about her this much.

Six months ago, if she (while sober) looked up at him as he was heading out from TV and Takeout, grabbed his arm and said, “You should stay,” he might have. He was very into her, but he didn’t know her that well, then. He knew ‘Lois Lane, Daily Planet,’ not the Lois who worried about others’ perception of her, who had a fraught relationship with her sister, who thought she needed to tell outlandish stories when she was younger to get other kids to like her (or, if not like her, fear her). 

Lois was right. Things were different in Smallville than they were in Metropolis, for both of them. In ways that made them closer. And in ways that would keep them from achieving a different kind of closeness. 

Sometimes, daydreaming about Other Clark, helped him stay sane, or at least keep some perspective. At times like this when he and his best friends loaded into his mom’s Subaru to head out for a night at a bar like regular twenty-somethings on a break from work. Pretending that this was it, that he wasn’t keeping an eye and an ear out for catastrophic trouble, that he had nothing more on his mind than whether his work friend-cum-real friend might become another kind of friend. 

Only he did have an ear out for trouble. Because he wasn’t Other Clark, he was…well, regular Clark. And sometimes regular Clark had to be Superman. Even when it was inconvenient or hard or he really didn’t feel like it. 

He made a choice. It was like he told Lois that first night, sometimes he wanted to disengage, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair - even when the alternative didn’t seem fair either. 

Chapter Text

The McKenna’s Taphouse building was a renovated bowling alley and still faintly smelled like the ashes of a thousand cigarettes. The bowling lanes were originally located on the floor below, access to which was blocked off on Monday nights.

“It’ll be open tomorrow,” Clark informed Lois. “For Two-Step Tuesdays, home of my parents’ weekly date night since the turn of the 21st century.” 

Of course the Kents had weekly date nights. Of course they did. 

“Remember when Maureen used to ‘babysit’ us?” Pete asked Clark, emphasis heavy on the air quotes. 

“Oh yeah,” Clark rolled his eyes. “When she’d watch Degrassi while we were in the same room as her? Glancing over occasionally to make sure we were still breathing?” 

“Formative childhood experiences - your first crush!”

“How dare you undervalue our relationship like that? I was going to marry Craig Manning…”

Clark held the door open as the group filed in. The upstairs contained the main bar (clearly the old shoe rental counter), a few tables and high-tops, a restored jukebox, assorted arcade consoles,  a small stage for live music/karaoke, and the mechanical bull of legend.

It was less of a showpiece than Lois imagined and looked more like a converted bounce house than anything. It was currently turned off, with the bull’s plastic and rubber head face-planted into the mat. She had no doubt that she would absolutely dominate the thing, winning the accolades of the assorted townies who called McKenna’s home on a Monday night. 

Said townies looked up as they came in, acknowledged them with grunts and waves. There was a young guy behind the bar who greeted them individually by name - including Lois.

“Lois, this is Brian McKenna,” Clark informed her as they bellied up to the bar. “Who has been…stalking you, apparently, I’m so sorry about that.”

“I follow all y’all on Instagram,” Brian stated, bending down to fulfill drink orders they hadn’t made yet. Pete slid his credit card across the bar to start a tab. “There are no secrets in the digital age.”

“You’re not helping yourself come across any less creepy here,” Pete informed him.

Lois let it go because Brian didn’t give off creepy energy. He looked exactly like the kind of guy who would work at a brewery: a human teddy bear with a very huggable-looking pot belly, a beard, and tattoos on his arms that appeared to be full sleeves in progress. He was wearing a denim apron dotted here and there with enamel pins that included his pronouns (he/him), an image of a guitar encircled by the words ‘This machine kills fascists’ in tiny font, and a little waving Martian with the caption ‘I Want to Believe.’

For Lana he whipped up a lemon drop martini, Pete got a rye old fashioned, and Clark got something from the tap that looked like strawberry lemonade, but smelled like alcohol. 

“What’ll it be, Lois?” he asked, wiping his hands on a towel at his shoulder.

Lois glanced at the labels behind the bar speculatively, pretending to be looking for something in particular. Her budget didn’t provide her the cash flow to become a cocktail connoisseur; usually when she stocked her fridge it was from the ‘Under $15’ wine selection or whatever Sam Adams variety pack was in season. But she didn’t want to look like she didn’t know what she was doing, so she decided to issue a challenge, rather than ask for guidance.

“Surprise me,” she said. Brian happily complied, presenting her with something he referred to as a “cold-fashioned” (really, just a standard old fashioned with added Kahlúa).

It was strong as fuck and Lois vowed to sip it extremely slowly to avoid a repeat of her Sunday morning panic. 

“Cheers, y’all!” Lana called, which was not an invitation to clink their glasses together, but was actually a command to get in formation for a selfie. 

Lois hoped that Lana posted it immediately and tagged all of them. Not because she wanted a temporary commemoration of the night, but because she wanted Lucy to see it and regret all of her life choices ( yes, she was still mad at her sister, yes she was that degree of petty). Hopefully Lana used an extremely flattering filter too. 

“How’s Leroy?” Clark asked Brian, inclining his head toward the mechanical bull. 

Brian’s eyes lit up. “He’s rarin’ to go as soon as I get a taker - you testing your mettle tonight, Chicken?”

“Oh, God, no,” Clark shook his head, taking a sip of his pink drink. He was their unofficial DD, but Lois figured one fruity little beer wasn’t going to tip his blood alcohol level into the danger zone.

Brian shook his head, “One of these days, baby, I’m going to get you to do something other than stand around. Lois, you know this boy doesn’t dance? His mama and daddy are out here every week tearing it up and he can’t be bothered to lift his feet, shake his ass, nothing.”

“I’m down for a little head bob,” Clark said and proceeded to do exactly that. 

“Very Night at the Roxbury, ” Lois observed and Clark took it as a compliment. 

“Thank you,” he acknowledged while Brian rolled his eyes and ranted about Clark bringing shame on his family name before the group of guys playing pool asked for another round and he got distracted by actually doing his job. 

“If Clark doesn’t dance, what’d you guys do at prom?” Lois asked Lana. “Play cards?”

“Brian’s being a drama queen, Clark’ll dance if the situation demands it,” she clarified. “Prom, weddings. But if he can opt out? He opts the hell out.”

“Two left feet?” Lois speculated. To be fair, she got it. She was never a club kid - Lois barely knew what to do with her hands in pictures, let alone her whole body on a dance floor. Not that this stopped her from dancing, she simply acknowledged that she was bad at it and incorporated that into her overall vibe, like she didn't care. And it was cool not to care, which automatically meant she was the coolest girl on any given dancer floor, despite generally being the worst at actually dancing. 

Clark made a face. “It’s more like…it’s awkward? I kinda stick out like a sore thumb, I’m pointlessly tall - ”

“Ah!” Pete raised a finger to Clark’s mouth to physically shush him. “What’d I say? There’s a time and a place to tackle your self-esteem issues and this ain’t it.”

Clark (very maturely) licked Pete’s finger in response, which Pete reacted to by wiping said finger on Clark’s t-shirt and chased him around, while Clark darted around the tables, like two overgrown toddlers playing tag. Lana beckoned Lois over to give her some additional context. 

“Clark had a ridiculous growth spurt in high school,” Lana said, making an effort to keep her voice down. “I was away the whole summer before junior year and when I got back…I mean, he looked totally different. It was almost scary, my Aunt Ruth thought he should go to an endocrinologist to get his, like, hormones analyzed. Obviously he’s fine, but I think he’s got some…residual self-consciousness. If that’s a thing.” 

Lana finished her martini in a long swallow and craned her neck back to get Brian’s attention for a refill. Lois took another tentative sip of her drink, subtly shaking it to get the ice to melt a little faster. That tracked, especially for City Clark who, as she’d noted many times, was a sloucher. He was pretty good at hiding in plain sight; it took Lois months before she got a glimmer of his actual personality and she’d been watching him like a hawk to find fault with him. 

She wouldn’t have called Clark insecure before now, but she figured Lana and Pete would know better than she would. 

“I guess his bio parents were descended from a race of giants,” Lois replied, taking another sip of her drink, nowhere near ready for another round.

“Ha,” Lana intoned, like Lois said something incredibly on the nose. “Maybe. Brian! Can I get a cosmo?” 

“One Basic Bitch, coming right up!”

Pete and Clark had stopped running around; they’d graduated from preschool antics to solidly elementary school antics, depositing quarters into neighboring pinball machines.

“I need to defend my high score,” Clark said, nodding at the screen which flashed a crazy high number, followed by the initials CJK . “Some pretender is trying to unseat me as Smallville’s reigning Pinball Wizard and I won’t have it.”

The letters PJR, alongside a similarly high number, coupled with the look of dogged determination on Pete’s face, told Lois all she needed to know about the so-called ‘pretender.’

“Do you guys have the same middle name?” she asked, looking between the two of them curiously.

“No, but close!” Pete said. “My middle name’s Jonathan, Clark’s is Joseph because our dads are diabolical .”

“Your dads are adorkable,” Lana corrected him, sidling up to them, cosmo in hand. “An iconic duo, providing a prime example of friendship to combat the male loneliness epidemic - didn’t your colleague Cat Grant write an article about that?”

That sounded like Cat and, belatedly, Lois remembered that Cat wanted her to make a connection with Lana. When she floated the idea, Lana proved equally as into Cat as Cat was into her. Lana alleged that Cat Grant was the reason she’d bought a subscription to The Daily Planet online.

“Thanks, Lana,” Clark grumbled at that, not taking his eyes off the playfield. “That does wonders for my self-esteem. Which apparently is already low - ”

“It’s an issue for another day,” Pete interrupted without looking up. “We’re not dealing with all that today, there isn’t time.”

By the time Clark and Pete were done (which took a while, Lois never had a game of pinball last more than five minutes, tops), she was finished with her drink, ready for round two, and more than ready to ride the mechanical bull. 

Lana asked Clark for quarters and skipped off to the jukebox while Brian fired Leroy up. The name was no accident; a tinny version of “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy,” queued up when he turned the machine on, immediately superseded by the genuine article sounding out over the barroom speakers. 

“Are there any instructions?” Lois asked Brian as he helped her over the squishy foam barricade.

“Don’t fall off,” he advised her, taking his place at the control center (there appeared to be exactly one button). 

Lois hopped up as elegantly as she could (which was to say, not elegantly at all, the body of the thing was wide and she only had little legs). There was a hard plastic molded seat, worn treacherously smooth by all the previous butts that had come before her, and a rope around Leroy’s neck which she grabbed onto. She gave the faux-fur covered head a pat between the horns, hoping to establish a rapport with the animal that would serve her well during their time together. 

Lana and Pete woo-hooed supportively from the periphery and some of the patrons turned their heads to watch. Clark had his phone out and was providing commentary. 

“Here we have the big city journalist,” he said, giving it his best David Attenborough. “Engaged in a peculiarly American ritual: domesticating the notoriously unpredictable mechanical bull…”

At first she was doing amazing . The machine started moving and Lois was holding on and Lana was cheering. She even managed to keep her seat during a particularly violent swoop to the left, which Lois assumed was the biggest maneuver Leroy had in his arsenal. Lois was on top of the freaking world, clearly the most dominant bull-rider Smallville, Kansas had ever seen -

But just like it had when she briefly flew off the swings, gravity got the better of her in the end. Leroy bucked and Lois tumbled off; she was on the mat before she even realized what happened.

“How long did I last?” she asked as she crawled to the exit, hoping the answer would be something like, fifteen minutes (this seemed unlikely since Big & Rich were still singing over the speaker system).

Clark glanced down at his phone. 

“Twenty-seven seconds,” he informed her. “Not bad!” 

Oh. Okay. Well, that was humiliating. Brian smiled at her in a kindly way and asked her if he could make her something for her troubles. 

“Surprise me,” Lois muttered as she got to her feet. To Clark she added, “Do not post that anywhere!”

“One Basic Bitch, coming up!”

Leroy was powered down for the evening, but Lois’s antics inspired a slightly more ‘party’ atmosphere; the music stayed loud and people started dancing - notably, not Clark. Lana dragged Lois and her cosmo out onto the little patch of floor in front of Leroy that people were shaking it on and she lost track of him completely. She was gulping down water that Brian provided without being asked when she realized that he was no longer in the bar.

“Where’s Clark?” Lois asked Pete, who was taking advantage of his absence to beat his high score. “Bathroom?”

“Uh, he had to step out for a minute,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Lois, causing him to lose his second ball. “Dammit! He said it probably wouldn’t take long, he’ll be back. Brian! Can I mess with your A/C? It’s hot as balls in here!”

It was hot; the combination of the booze and the dancing (and the lingering embarrassment of defeat) led to Lois feeling a little woozy. She slipped out the front door into the parking lot where she was surprised to see Mrs. Kent’s Subaru exactly where Clark parked it. Wherever he’d gone, it must have been within walking distance.

Lois leaned up against the side of the car, scrolling through her phone. Instagram showed her that Lucy had seen the selfie from earlier in her Stories, but had not ‘Liked’ it. Clark hadn’t posted the bull video, to her enormous relief. She might ask to borrow his phone later and delete its existence from the Cloud; she did not handle defeat graciously. 

“Are you ready to go already?” 

There was Clark. He was looking at her with concern and no wonder; it was barely eight-thirty. 

“I’m good, I just wanted some air,” Lois said. “You can go in, I’ll be back in a minute - where’d you go, anyway?”

“Just…down there,” Clark said, gesturing across the street at nothing. “Want me to get you a water?”

Lois agreed that she’d like another water; it was less hot outside McKenna’s than inside, but it was a pretty balmy evening. There was no need to bust out her and Lana’s get-along shirt. Clark ducked inside and returned in short order with water.

“Thanks,” she said, taking a swig. “You can go back in, hang out with your friends, you don’t have to babysit me.”

“I’m not babysitting you,” Clark replied, leaning on the Subaru along with her. “And I am hanging out with my friends - friend, you are my friend, we’re hanging out, it’s the same.”

It was nice of him to say, but Clark was always nice. Lois was starting to get the impression that the guy would miss his own birthday party if it meant doing someone a favor. Which brought up another matter.

“When’s your birthday?” Lois asked him. “It’s not this week, is it? This trip isn’t some kind of Clark Birthday Extravaganza that you haven’t told me about for some bizarre reason? And that no one else has mentioned? I’m not going to suddenly feel like an asshole if there’s a party and I didn’t bring anything?” 

Clark laughed and shook his head. “No, you’re good, it’s not my birthday for a while. ”

Then he leaned down and his smile got that devious edge that it did when he was teasing and he adopted a tone of voice that would not have been out of place among public broadcasting heroes like Mister Rogers and LeVar Burton. 

“But you know, Lois,” he said, tone sickly sweet. “Even if it was my birthday, you’d never be empty-handed. Your presence is present enough.”

Lois fought the urge to throw her half-full cup of water directly in his face. She mastered herself, but barely; Clark still had blackmail images saved on his phone. 

“You suck so much,” she declared instead and Clark straightened up, folding his arms across his chest, chuckling. “Seriously though, when is your birthday? I’ll put it in my phone so I don’t forget.” 

“You might not be able to,” Clark warned her. “Not for another…two years, I think.”

Lois’s nose wrinkled in confusion, then her expression cleared. “You’re a leap year baby? Seriously? That’s so cool, I’ve never met one of you before!”

“You still haven’t,” Clark said, cautiously. “I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s not…it’s not technically my birthday. It’s the day my parents found me, though, so it’s the day we celebrate - well, that or March 1st, whichever one is actually on the calendar.”

“Isn’t that called a Gotcha Day?” Lois asked, cocking her head up at him curiously.

Clark winced.

“I don’t… love that term,” he admitted, pushing his glasses up from where they’d slipped down the bridge of his nose. “It makes me sound like a Pokémon. Birthday’s just as good.”

Except it wasn’t. Not in Lois’s opinion, it was his I’m A Kent Now Day (which, honestly, was worthy of celebration, after a weekend with Clark’s parents she wouldn’t mind if they adopted her). But it clearly wasn’t the day he was born. Clark would have said if it was, he was extremely precise with language - that was one of the things she knew about him before she knew that he had a personality. 

“When’s your actual birthday?” Lois asked. “The day you were. Y’know. Birthed.”

She made a vague shoving gesture, meant to mimic the passage of a baby through the birth canal. Luckily Clark was great at charades and he understood her meaning at once.

“Uh…I don’t know,” he replied. Then shrugged like it was no big deal to not know the day you were born. “Ready to go back in? I think the air’s on, it felt cooler when I got the water - ”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Lois pressed straightening up and turning toward Clark, half-blocking his exit path. “I know closed adoptions are a thing, but the adoption agency should still have some records, like the day you were born and medical - ”

“There isn’t,” Clark interrupted her flatly. He rubbed at one eye under his glasses, knocking them slightly askew, but he pushed them back into place. “I wasn’t - there was no agency. There’s no records. I wasn’t placed, I was dumped.”

Oh, shit.

The Kent Charm Offensive caused many under its benevolent inquiries to spill their guts far more than they intended. The Lane Inquisition could produce similar effects, but not as gently for the person on the receiving end. Clark’s mouth thinned to a hard line and it was clear to Lois that he said way more than he meant to. 

Usually that was great for her, pay dirt, a story. Only this time she felt a twinge of discomfort. Yes, Lois was nosy as hell, but she wasn’t totally heartless, she hadn’t been trying to push Clark into a confession about his childhood trauma. Infancy trauma. She actually didn’t know how old he was when he was adopted, but judging from the photos on the Great Wall of Clark the answer was: really, really young. 

“I wasn’t placed with an agency or surrendered to a fire station,” Clark continued so that Lois couldn’t misunderstand him. He didn’t meet her eyes as he spoke, instead gazing at some point in the distance over her head. The look on his face was reminiscent of his Junior Year photo: angry at first glance, but quietly miserable underneath. “February 29th, wee hours of the morning. My parents were out back in the truck. They heard a noise, something…something in the fields. Followed it. Found me.”

Clark stood up straight and kicked a loose piece of gravel. Lois watched it bounce out of the parking lot and into the street where it was lost in the darkness.

“Aunt Becks - Pete’s mom,” Clark clarified. “She worked for the county clerk’s office. She was on maternity leave, but she went in to help them with the paperwork - I’ve seen it. Lots of blank lines. Still, I got a birth certificate. Social Security card. Good enough.”

It was not good enough. It was fucking heartbreaking.

“Male infant,” he said like he was reciting a poem he memorized. “Likely Caucasian. Estimated six to eight weeks old. Black hair. Blue eyes. Ten pounds, five ounces, twenty-three inches long.”

Finally, Clark glanced down at her. The look on his face softened and he no longer looked angry or sad. Just a little tired.

“That’s about it,” he said, almost apologetically. “Not much of a story. Safe Haven laws give people thirty days to come back for a baby they give up before the courts terminate parental rights. Usually DCF takes the kids for placement, but my parents were just approved to foster and…they never said as much, but I think Aunt Becks skipped a few steps so I could stay with them the whole time.”

Some of her conversation with Lana took on a new shade of awful. Clark had a ridiculous growth spurt, it was almost scary. Well, yeah, any unusual physical or medical thing would be scary without any documentation about his birth family, what conditions they might or might not have. No wonder Clark was “kind of an asshole” his junior year, he was probably worried he had some kind of incurable disease. And he had no way of knowing.

“Don’t - ” 

The look on Clark’s face shifted and he swallowed hard, shaking his head, a slight air of desperation entering his voice. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me. I got lucky. Really fucking lucky. Like - ooh, you ready for me to say something real stupid? I’m serious, this might be the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard me say and I say some dumb shit.”

He didn’t. Clark was one of the smartest people she knew - not just intellect smart, people smart, which was a whole other level of aptitude. This was the longest Lois had kept her mouth shut in a while - she had lots of questions, but couldn’t get them out. Her throat had gone really tight. This was Clark Kent, one of the best people she’d ever met. Who would abandon Clark?

“Sometimes I think - I like to think,” he amended, desperation giving way to conviction. “That they knew somehow. They knew - my biological parents - that they were putting me with…the right family. That they picked them, my mom and dad, they chose that place and that time because they knew they’d find me and it’d be…right.”

Clark cleared his throat, his eyes really bright all of a sudden.

“Go ahead,” he encouraged her, spreading his hands wide, a half-smile on his face. “Lay it on me, you can tell me it’s dumb.” 

It was at that moment that Lois had a revelation. For the past few days she had been pouting, wondering when she would get to a point in her relationship with Clark when they would become friends who hugged. Waiting for him to make the move and hug her. It never occurred to her that she should be the one who hugged him.

Frankly, she needed to amend this mistake to fix sexism. Also because Clark really looked like he could use a hug. 

Lois walked right up to him, wrapped her arms around his waist and gave him a squeeze. 

“It’s not dumb,” Lois said, turning her head so she wasn’t talking directly into Clark’s shirt. Her voice was insistent rather than soothing. “They did - Clark whether they knew it or not they clearly left you with the right people. That’s just…really, really obvious. So whether they chose them or if it was just crazy luck, they did it.”

Clark hugged her back. He bent down a little to get a better angle and, while it was probably the exact wrong thing to think when your best friend in the entire world (yes, Clark was her best friend, Lois decided that at the exact moment she realized she needed to hug him), was trauma-dumping his origin story, she immediately determined that this was the best hug she’d ever had.

“Sorry,” he said as he loosened his arms and released her. Clark awkwardly ruffled the hair at the back of his head. “I didn’t mean to be such a downer.”

“No, no it’s good,” Lois insisted. “I mean, I told you all about my…my mom-stuff and you listened and were chill. I…owe you. Like, one shitty parent to another. Sorry, that’s not fair, I don’t know your bio parents were shitty. Hey, they did one good thing for you! They left you with the right people.”

Since Clark didn’t know anything about them, they were kind of like Schrodinger’s Parents. Simultaneously Shitty and Not Shitty. God, she was probably fucking this up so bad. When she found out Clark was adopted, she should have done some internet research. There were probably a dozen or more articles a simple Google search away, 'How to Talk to Your Adopted Friends without Sounding Like an Idiot or a Dick.' Unfortunately, she hadn't bothered Googling and was likely coming across like both.

“They did do that,” Clark acknowledged. “And…well, I know one thing, one important thing.” 

He raised his eyes up to look skyward. There were a lot more stars in Smallville than in Metropolis, even though being in town blotted them out a little. More light pollution than on the Kent’s farm. Despite the heat of the evening, Lois felt a prickle of cold lodge between her shoulder blades. What did the sky look like the night Clark got abandoned? How dark was it for an itty bitty baby, all alone?

“I know they were desperate,” Clark sighed at last. “And they didn’t have a choice.”

That sounded about right. Leaving a baby in some random field was not the action of a person, or people who thought they had any other options. Lois was not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but she thanked whatever was out there that might be a force for good in the universe that Clark found the Kents. Or they found him. And, selfishly, that he found her.

“I don’t usually tell people that,” Clark admitted. “The part about…not being adopted the regular way. It makes people uncomfortable or…I don’t know, sad. When you think about it, every adoption story’s sad. Mine just has a happy ending.”

Lois could see that. Could relate, a tiny bit. She hadn’t been dumped, but she’d been left. Abandoned by one of her parents. She’d never thought of Ellen Lane as being desperate when she did it (like, the woman cancelled credit cards, siphoned money into a secret bank account, got a burner phone, she planned ), but maybe she was, in her way.  

She probably wasn’t going to ever achieve the kind of grace and peace Clark felt about his bio parents for her own mother, but their situations were different. And it was nice (almost inspiring) to hear him speak so generously about people who, whatever their circumstances, dumped a helpless fucking baby on some random people’s property.

“Thanks for telling me,” she said with more sincerity than she usually felt comfortable expressing. “I feel very…special. Honored, even.” 

Clark smiled at her and she just…wow. Really loved seeing that smile. It made her feel like she wasn't a fuck-up at all.

“You are special,” he said. Ruefully, he added, “My parents always try to be cute about it. Ma and Pa always say, they - the bio parents -  gave me to them, like I was a present.”

“Oh, Clark,” Lois said seriously, grabbing his left hand and holding it between both of hers. She gazed solemnly up into his eyes and said. “You are a present. Your presence is present enough.”

And just like that the veil of slight melancholy that had fallen over them was rent asunder. Clark laughed so hard he snorted and Lois laughed along because yes, she was the kind of person who laughed at her own jokes. Because her jokes were fucking hilarious.

“Let’s go back,” Clark said, putting an arm around Lois’s shoulders to lead her back to the bar. “Pete’s probably broken my high score and I need to have my revenge.”

“Wait, can I see your phone for a minute?” Lois asked. Clark handed it to her without question (a much dumber thing than thinking that his bio parents hand-selected his adoptive parents) and she went right to his photos. As expected, there was a thirty-five second video of her falling off the bull, complete with commentary track. 

“Here we have the big city journalist,” the slightly echoey voice of Clark from an hour ago floated up to her from the speaker. “Engaged in a peculiarly American ritual: Domesticating the notoriously unpredictable mechanical bull. Many have tried. Few have succeeded. But before you stands a worthy challenger - Lois Freaking Lane, of the Daily Planet. To quote the very Bard himself, ‘Though she be but little, she is fierce.’ We see her sheer ferocity on display - ah! She triumphs! The bull pivots on its little axel, but Lois Freaking Lane stays strong - she’s beauty! She’s grace! She’s Miss United States! Never more so than when she’s on the mat. Bravo, Lois. Bravo.”

Lois did not delete the video. She risked the blackmail potential and censure of the Cloud. She texted it to herself instead.

“Thanks,” she said, handing Clark the phone back. “Do you think Brian would turn the bull back on? I think I can do a full thirty seconds this time…”

Chapter Text

Lois’s longest stint on Leroy was forty-five seconds. She felt really good about herself, especially when a YouTube search showed her lots of videos of people just eating it after a second or two on similar specimens. Some of her triumph dimmed when Pete let slip that the machine at McKenna’s was meant for children’s birthday parties, but she’d still take the W where she could get it. She was definitely the champ of the night - there were no other takers and so, Lois was the clear victor in the battle of Woman vs. Machine. 

The bar closed at eleven on weeknights and after last call, everyone got back in the Subaru so Clark could drop Pete and Lana off at their respective homes. As they pulled into the Kents’ driveway and the dashboard clock clicked over to 12:00AM, Lois realized with a jolt that they only had one day left in Kansas. 

Well, a day and a half, if you counted the time she’d spend sleeping and at the airport. It went by so fast and she felt genuinely sad, more so than she expected. At the beginning of this trip, Lois assumed there would come a point when she’d be counting down the hours before she was back at her desk, but that wasn’t the case at all. 

It wasn’t that she wanted to abandon her life and career to live in a tiny house next to the tire swing, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t going to miss the Kents’ farm. The food, the dogs, the easy camaraderie. Country Clark, maybe, most of all. She wasn’t eager to go to bed; it would just make departure time come all that faster.

“You want to stay out for a bit?” Clark asked, like he could read her mind. Lois agreed and they switched vehicles; he squeezed in behind the wheel of his dad’s truck while Lois joined him in the passenger seat. 

They didn’t go too far, the house was still very much in view down one of the dirt paths Clark took, leading into the fields. He turned the headlights off and exited the truck, spreading a blanket out in the bed. Lois followed his lead to lay down, looking up at the bazillions of stars overhead.

Clark folded his hands behind his head, closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. Lois lay on her side, head propped up on her arm, watching him, charting the gentle rise and fall of his chest, staring at the slight smile on his cute little face.

Whoever left him here put him exactly where he was meant to be, she thought. How crazy is that?

If relaxation was the goal of the trip, Clark definitely hit it. It was so still and so clear she could see the stars reflected in his glasses. The only sound around them was a chorus of unseen crickets.

Lois waited a whole three minutes before she interrupted the silence with a question. “Are you sad we’re leaving?” 

Clark replied without opening his eyes, his state of zen undisturbed by Lois Lane, Professional Question-Asker.

“I’m sad this trip is ending,” he said. “But I get back here all the time, I just wish…”

Clark opened his eyes then, looking up at Lois through the reflected starlight.

“I’m really glad you came,” he told her. “I was worried you’d be bored, but…you had a good time, right? You’re having a good time - trip’s not over just yet.”

Lois nodded. In all seriousness, this had been one of the best vacations of her life and she wasn’t sure if that was truly awesome or slightly pathetic. She wasn’t with her family, so they weren’t all sniping at each other. She wasn’t on her own, so she had people to share the experience with. The only thing that was definitely a bummer was the near-guarantee that she was never going to see any of these people again.

Sure, Lana posted on social media for her job, so she’d see her, but Lois would just be one heart emoji among many. People like PeteRoss or the Kearns family had no reason to speak to reach out to her when she was gone. That was just how life went when you didn’t put down roots anywhere. Relationships were temporary, fun while they lasted, just don’t expect them to have a long expiration date. 

“It’s been great,” she said. “Thanks for. Um. Actually planning this? I kind of thought this whole thing was an elaborate prank for a while. Like, I’d show up at the airport and text you, ‘I’m here!’ and you’d be like, ‘Where?’ And I’d be like, ‘The airport?’ And you’d be like, ‘OMG, you believed me?’ Ha.”

With that confession, the appearance of zen was gone. Clark turned on his side, mirroring Lois’s position, head on his hand. There was a small frown on his face and a slight crease between his eyes. Clearly he did not find the story funny. 

“Why would you think that?” he asked with a suggestion of hurt in his voice that made Lois feel like she’d done something wrong. “Why would I do that? That would be…”

He trailed off and Lois came up with half a dozen fill-in-the-blanks. Stupid. Insane. Ridiculous. Dumb. Pointless. Idiotic. 

“Mean,” Clark concluded. “Like… cartoonishly mean. Did you really think you’d show up at the airport and I’d be at my place…laughing an evil laugh about making you get up early? Packing a suitcase for a trip that wasn’t gonna happen? I took money from you for tickets!”

Something hot and guilty squirmed around in her guts; she hadn’t realized how shitty her doubts might make Clark feel. All the time she felt like her Fake Smallville Trip notion was purely a negative reflection on her. That she wasn’t the kind of person people wanted to vacation with, let allow to snoop around their childhood bedrooms, introduce to their family and friends. It hadn’t even crossed her mind how Clark might feel about Lois taking him for the kind of person who pulled cruel pranks on those they claimed as friends. 

“I know, I know,” Lois said, deflecting, trying to redirect the flow of the conversation which was making her look bad and hurting Clark's feelings. 

“I’m not sure you do,” Clark countered, mouth screwing up a little further. The fingers of his left hand beat a tattoo against the bed of the truck, muffled by the blanket. “You don’t -  you really don’t trust people at all, do you?”

Lois expected anger. At least an accusatory tone. Expected Clark would react with offense at the idea that there was a part of Lois that didn’t trust him. That thought he would lie to her about something as personal as taking her to meet his loved ones, would take pleasure in pulling the rug out from under her and making her look foolish. 

But Clark didn’t sound offended. He sounded really, really sad. 

"I…”

No. She didn’t. It wasn’t a Clark-specific thing - she trusted him more than pretty much anyone else in the world. But that wasn’t exactly a compliment, considering her trust in other people was essentially nil. Being told, ‘On a scale of 1-10, I trust you 2!’ didn’t sound good, even if he knew the rest of the world was holding firm at 0. 

Lois didn’t think that was a bad thing, necessarily. It wasn’t like she was hyper-paranoid or anything. Natural suspicion was a great quality in an investigative reporter! Maybe…maybe not an optimal quality in a friend, but friends came and went. Her job was for life.

“It’s okay,” Clark said softly, in a tone more resigned than accepting. “Everyone’s got their stuff - hey! Look, shooting star! Make a wish.”

Lois sat up just in time to see a little white streak zoom across the sky. She closed her eyes and said, “Dear Shooting Star: I wish Superman would give me an exclusive so he can get off my shit list and Clark can stop pouting at me about it. Amen.”

When she opened her eyes she saw Clark staring at her with one eyebrow raised incredulously. “That’s how you wish on stars?”

“Do not lecture me on star-wishing technique,” Lois said warningly. “It’s deeply sacred and personal to all star-wishers. Besides, I thought you’d like that one, since you’re such a fan.”

“I’m not…” Clark began, then paused. “What would you ask him? Really, if Superman popped on down and was all, ‘Good evening, Ms. Lane, I heard you had some questions about me,’ what would you ask?”

Lois rattled off a series of questions immediately. The lack of hesitation or thought she invested into the matter somewhat undermined her blase, ‘Oh, I don’t care that much about Superman, thanks for the life-saving, though!’ attitude of Friday night. 

It couldn’t be denied that getting an exclusive with his big red ass would rocket her career into the stratosphere. Even if, as she suspected, there was nothing going on behind his clear blue eyes, that didn’t mean that the Superman mystery lacked interest to the general public - just the opposite, they’d eat it up. And, depending on how he answered her, she might find out that there was a juicy story behind the bland smile and pithy well-wishes after all.

“What’s your intended purpose? How do you do what you do? Where do you come from? Who created you and why?”

Clark cocked his head and looked at her curiously.

“That’s some kind of high-level stuff, don’t you think?” he remarked. “More philosophical than practical. Like, ‘What us is our purpose?’ ‘Why are we here?’”

“Not we,” Lois corrected him. “We’re not talking about…like, people, we’re talking about Superman.”

A beat. Then: “You don’t think Superman’s a person?”

“I don’t know, but…” Lois shrugged, considering the matter briefly before she replied. “Not really? Not a people-person like you and me, anyway. The way I have it figured out, either he’s some kind of robot - which I guess would make “him” an “it” - ” 

“Yikes,” Clark said quietly.

“It’s your buddy Murderbot’s preferred way of referring to itself,” Lois reminded him with a smile. “So yeah, either an android or a metahuman with cybernetic enhancements, maybe nanotech? But definitely lab-grown, like a test tube baby raised by a robotic arm, not…you know, a whole individual with, like a life and stuff. So yeah, we’re dealing with either a fully synthetic humanoid lifeform or maybe he’s got human parts, but no way he’s a…real boy.”

This conversation was dredging up shades of Lois Past, the version of herself one who was active on the subreddits. Clark didn’t reply immediately, so she just kept plowing on with her pet theories.

“It’s not that I object to Superman on…on principle,” she continued. “I’m not a sociopath! I keep telling you, it’s fine - good! It’s good what he does, what he’s been doing. Like, fact: Superman has been doing good things in the world since he got here. And if that’s it? Then I’m not interested - it’s not like every EMT in Metropolis deserves a front-page exclusive, right?”

“Mmm,” Clark hummed speculatively. “They don’t?”

Lois made a dismissive sputter with her mouth, not unlike a horse, which she felt was fitting for the setting. As a Special Features guy, Clark thought everyone in the city deserved the chance to have their stories in print and that was simply not an opinion Lois shared. On a moral level: yes, every life was a universe. On a professional level: no, not every life was news. They were never going to see eye-to-eye on that, so Lois didn’t even try.

“But,” she continued, with the signature gleam in her eye that made some of her coworkers nervous. “If there is something going on beneath the surface? If those conspiracy nuts are actually onto something? That would be worth investigating. That’s a story. Not his, ‘All in a day’s work, citizens, I’m here to help,’ schtick.”

“You don’t believe the conspiracy nuts, though?” Clark questioned, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He sat up, scooting back so he was leaning against the back wall of the truck. “Some of the theories are…um. Really out there.”

“Well, yeah, the ones trying to tie him to Area 51 or the Bermuda Triangle or Stonehenge, those are batshit,” Lois agreed. “And…sure, the dark money ones don’t seem to have legs, but I don’t think it’s completely impossible that there’s something else going on. It’s a little naive to think that he’s just been created to lend a hand during disasters - you know, discounting the theories that he was made by the government because they can’t even get FEMA to work the way it’s supposed to - what?”

She knelt on the blanket and frowned up at Clark who was looking at her like…like he was disappointed in her or something. Which was fair when they were talking about how she didn’t trust him to take her on vacation, but was not fair when they were talking about stuff like this, world affairs that had nothing to do with them, really. They were speculating wildly about a mysterious global phenomenon, it’s not like this was personal. 

“What if he’s just…a guy?” Clark posited. “And that really is it. Just someone who…wants to help?”

“I mean…maybe? But…no, never mind, there’s no way,” Lois self-corrected, only half-listening, mostly concentrating on curating her next sentence, winning the debate. Like they were already back in the newsroom. “Really think about what you’re saying, Clark: Superman’s some regular Joe who just so happens to be able to lift buildings and shoot fire out of his eyes? You think some random ass dude would use all that power just to help people? No ulterior motive whatsoever?”

“Yeah,” Clark said, voice extremely subdued. “I kinda do.”

“That’s - ” Lois had just enough regard for Clark to catch herself before she called him stupid. He wasn’t stupid, they established that earlier in the evening. He was just saying stupid stuff, possibly for the sake of being argumentative. “People don’t work like that. People are basically selfish and don’t give a shit about anyone other than themselves and their comfort. You know the biggest, loudest philanthropists are always fucking billionaires who invest in clean water projects in underdeveloped countries to distract everyone from the fact that their factories were poisoning the water supply to begin with.”

“That’s not true,” Clark started, then amended his statement. “Okay, the billionaire part is true, but…not everyone is a selfish asshole. You’re not! I’m not! People are constantly looking out for each other, pitching in however they can - ”

“Not if they’ve got the power to make a Superman or be Superman,” Lois interrupted him. “Regular people, normal people like us, sure, might …lobby their senators or make a recurring donation to some cause they believe in - or, fuck it, help a stranger change a tire, like your dad did. But also? People like us will very much not. Lots of people don’t vote or volunteer, plenty of people would just zip past a car stalled on the side of the road without noticing it. Because they don’t care, can’t be bothered, assume someone else will take care of it, or just have endless excuses.

“And,” she added, on a roll now, “if a random person had the abilities of Superman? You can bet your ass that they wouldn’t be using them to help strangers, no strings attached. They’d be either monetizing that shit - savior for hire - or they’d be trying to take over the world.”

Clark shook his head and seemed poised to respond, but Lois bulldozed on, without giving him time to get a word in.

“If you really think about it, what you’re suggesting would actually be kind of horrifying,” Lois continued, “Superman just being some dude with infinite power. Like, you’d hope he’s a straight-up android or a cyborg with no personality, right? Because there’s accountability there, a controlling entity or at least a freaking scientist with an ‘Off’ switch. In case he goes rogue? Or it turns out the conspiracy nuts were right and Superman is just here to lull us into a false sense of security before he unleashes Armageddon on our asses. ”

Clark wasn't looking at her anymore. He’d drawn his legs up, balancing his elbows on his knees and started out across the field, into the darkness around them and not the stars above them. It was so dark she couldn't see his eyes shaded behind the frames of his glasses. 

Lois felt a teensy pang of something like regret. It was clear she’d burst Clark’s bubble a tiny bit - but she didn’t feel that bad. Frankly, if he was looking at the Superman issue through rose-colored glasses, he deserved to have his illusions shattered. It would be better for him in the long-run; like telling a middle schooler who still believed in Santa Claus the truth. It might sting in the moment, but it was way better than letting them embarrass themselves and come across like an idiot when it actually mattered.

Lois truly adored Clark’s optimism. The way he had faith, trust, and pixie dust for people. It was really, really different to how she saw the world, but it wasn’t bad. It was refreshing to know someone who cared that deeply, was sensitive, and saw the best in people whether they deserved it or not. The world needed people like Clark Kent around to prevent it from sinking into an endless parade of nihilism and despair. 

She wasn’t immune. That smile of his was pure sunshine. But people like Clark needed people like Lois to bring them down to earth sometimes. To remind them about the realities of the world around them so they didn’t get so blinded by the dream of how the world could be that they started living in a fantasy. You couldn’t help find solutions if you couldn’t see problems in the first place.

Really, though, she was spitballing; it wasn’t that deep. Like, should they be prepared in the back of their minds if Superman’s ultimate purpose was to Fuck Shit Up? Sure, but there was no real evidence that was a likely outcome. A possibility, maybe, anything was possible (and, as with her crashing plane scenario, if Superman went rogue, what the fuck were she and Clark going to do about it?) But, based on how Superman had been behaving, how there were no apparent ties to corporate interests, no overt allegiance to any one government, it might be as she thought: that Superman (whatever he/it was) was just an extra well-equipped first responder with no unique impulses or personal thoughts beyond: If People in Danger, Then Save People. 

Still, Clark looked really bummed out. Lois could relate; she hated being wrong too.

“Hey,” Lois said, grabbing hold of Clark’s arm and leaning her chin on his shoulder. “Don’t take it too hard. Look on the bright side! If Superman’s not a real guy with real feelings, then there’s no chance he’ll get offended by your truly tragic impression of him. Can you imagine if he was like, ‘I DON’T FUCKING SOUND LIKE THAT PUNY HUMAN,’ and blasted you to pieces with his laser eyes?”

The corners of Clark’s mouth twitched in a smile. “That would suck.”

“It truly would,” Lois agreed. “I prefer you in one piece, not smithereens.”

“Aww,” Clark cooed, leaning his cheek on top of her head. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

The lateness of the hour (it must have been close to one a.m., if not a little past) prompted Clark to ask if she wanted to head in and Lois agreed that was probably a good idea. As they got back in the car, Lois asked Clark one more question.

“Oh, hey, did you make a wish earlier?” 

“I sure did,” Clark confirmed, buckling himself in for the short ride back; Lois didn't bother with a seatbelt.

Lois looked at him expectantly while he turned the key and the truck hummed to life. Clark smiled blandly at her and slowly drove back toward the front of the property. 

“Are you seriously not going to tell me what it was?” she asked incredulously.

Clark shook his head in the negative. 

“If you tell people what you wish for, it won’t come true,” he said, a little wistfully. “I really want mine to come true someday. If it does, Lois, I guarantee you’ll be the first to know.”

Chapter Text

Right. Okay. So. 

That fucking sucked.  

All things considered, Clark thought he held it together admirably. He didn’t spontaneously combust, he didn’t throw up. He wanted to, but he didn't.  

The most astonishing thing, really, was how extremely fucking wrong he'd been. Clark had been living all these long months within a blissful fantasy of his own creation. A fantasy in which Lois’s take on Superman was, ‘Frustratingly closed-lipped, but essentially fine.’ 

NOPE! ‘Definitely not a person, possibly a danger to humanity as a whole,’ was the reality and not a pleasant one at that.  

He was of half a mind to text Pete and Lana as soon as he saw Lois off to bed. Something petty and despairing, like ‘LOL YOU GUYS THOUGHT LOIS WAS INTO ME?? TURNS OUT SHE THINKS I’M AN ANDROID WHO MIGHT GO ROGUE WHO’S THE IDIOT NOW????’ followed by a dozen weeping emojis, but it was almost two in the morning and Pete never turned his notifications off. Inevitably, Clark would mess up texting ‘rogue’ as ‘rouge,’ which autocorrect wouldn't catch, and Pete would hear the ding, get mad about being woken up, correct Clark's grammar, and go back to bed. Better to avoid the whole thing and say nothing.

Because it was two in the goddamn morning, which was not an appropriate time of day to start shit. Pete and Lana were asleep. His parents were asleep. Lois was asleep. Clark was not asleep. 

He almost went to bed! Clark made it as far as the bedroom door. He surveyed the place, looked at his comfy pillows, his white noise machine, and his precious baby boy Otis whose huge furry ass was on top of his pillows and just…noped the fuck out of there.

Rather than sleeping off the evening’s mortification, Clark did what he did every time he was overwhelmed: took to the sky and looked for something to do, to distract himself from how bad he felt. 

Tonight, the world will sleep soundly, knowing that Superman is having a total fucking breakdown and looking for shit to do to take his mind off it! You’re welcome world! 

This particular cope came straight out of the Martha Kent playbook. The summer before his junior year (aka Hell Summer), she not only rebuilt the entire staircase, she fixed every leaky faucet in the house, changed all the closet light bulbs, reorganized the crawl space, and repainted the porch. 

Clark wracked up a similar list of achievements over the next few hours. A listing container ship was brought into port, a group of lost hikers were reunited with their base camp, and a small wildfire caused by careless campers was summarily extinguished (WHY DID NO ONE LISTEN TO SMOKEY THE BEAR?). 

Pretty good, right? In terms of maladaptive stress reactions, at least his was helpful! Even after all that, Clark still managed to get back to the farm with enough time to get all the morning chores done before Pa’s coffee finished brewing.  

Pa was...less than thrilled thrilled about that. He met Clark out by the tractor, with a frown and only one cup of coffee in his hands; usually when Clark came home to pitch in, he’d bring two. Clark should have anticipated that. Pa appreciated assistance, but he drew a hard line at Clark doing all his work for him. When Clark wasn't completely crashing out, he respected his father's boundaries, but on days like this he had a tendency to run roughshod over them and hope Pa would look the other way.

No such luck. Pa took a sip of his coffee and squinted up at Clark under the rim of his baseball cap. Rather than expressing gratitude he merely asked, “You sleep at all last night?”

And that was another thing! Why was everyone nagging him about his sleeping habits? Okay, not everyone, specifically Pa and Lana, but it happened twice in four days, so really, what the hell? 

Especially when he had been sleeping! Not eight hours a night, but Clark wasn’t anywhere close to getting to a point where he needed to sleep. He tested the limits of his ability to stay awake without noticeable consequences in college. The longest he managed was eight full days before he found himself zoning out in class - and even then, he hadn’t conked out or anything! He was supposed to be learning about Watergate, but was actually listening to the music majors’ finals recital and could not, for the life of him, refocus his hearing to the room he was actually in.  

And - and! - he’d gotten a great night’s sleep the night before! Which meant that he still had a solid week where he would be alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic before he needed to take a power nap and recharge. He was good, he was fine, he’d circled the globe, saved lives, and avoided being completely consumed by intrusive thoughts! Go him!

There was one pesky tell: he was sweating. It was a dead giveaway that he was teeming with anxiety. Clark subtly tried to air out the back of his t-shirt, which was suctioned to his lower back, and hope his father didn’t notice.

He noticed. 

“I’ll take that as a no,” Pa said, in response to Clark’s silence and fidgeting. “Well, I should check the hydraulics on the tractor - ”

“Already done,” Clark replied. “Checked the hydraulics, changed the oil…rotated the tires on the truck…” 

“I can do all that,” Pa pointed out. “No need for you to lose sleep, maintaining equipment at four in the morning - ”

“Losing sleep is kinda relative for me,” Clark shrugged in a devil-may-care, all-in-a-day’s-work, I-am-a-thoroughly-well-adjusted-freak-of-nature-with-no-self-esteem-issues-whatsoever way. “You know, I don’t really need a full night - ”

“Oh, believe me, buddy, you do,” Pa interrupted him. “Maybe not for your health, but you get real ornery whenever you pull an all-nighter. Go on, put your PJs on, get some shut-eye. I’ll see you in a bit.”

And that was it. Clark was dismissed.

Pa turned on his heel and headed off toward the barn, probably to do some project or other he’d been putting off that Clark didn’t know about. Maybe to get a tarp and some duct tape to cover up the massive hole in the back of the old green truck where once stood a window. If so, he’d be foiled in his ambitions because Clark also covered the hole and cleared out all the broken glass. That would probably annoy him more and it was with the intention of avoiding further displeasure on the part of Jonathan Kent that Clark made his way up to the house.

Maybe this would bring Lois a measure of satisfaction on the subject of Superman. Maybe she’d count this as his ‘Off’ switch - meekly heading up to his room because his dad ordered him to go to sleep, like he was a cranky toddler instead of a grown ass man with a job and an apartment and $30,000 in student loans.

Oh! Would that make him less scary in her eyes? Knowing Superman would wake up at 6 a.m. (on those nights when he did sleep) broken out in a cold sweat, wondering if he'd really paid his bills or only imagined that he had, certain that one late payment would send into default? (Yeah, he was enough of an adult to have debt, but not enough of an adult to have the kind of cushion in his bank account to enable him to put his bills on auto-pay, thank you very much late-stage capitalism.) Would that humanize him in her eyes? Make him more of a person and less of a…thing?

Clark didn’t actually change into pajamas, he just shucked off his outer layers and fell face-first into his pillows in his underwear. Otis had long since vacated the premises, but they still smelled like dog butt, so he flipped them to the other side which only sort of helped. 

Superman doesn’t have student loans, Clark reminded himself dolefully, wiggling under his comforter. Lois doesn’t need to be convinced of your humanity, dipshit. She needs to be convinced of Superman’s. 

Clark should have kept his big dumb mouth shut. What did he think Lois was going to say when he asked her what questions she had for Superman? Did he think he was being cute? Funny? Offering her the exclusive of a lifetime without actually having to put himself - or Superman’s self - on the line?

Earlier, he felt really awful when Lois told him she thought he was kidding about the offer to go on vacation. Had the audacity to say that would be way too mean for him to contemplate. But was the shit he pulled out in the field any better?”

‘Hey, Lois, hypothetically, if Superman was here, what would you ask him? JOKE’S ON YOU I’M RIGHT HERE! WANNA SEE THE CAPE? MY MOM MADE IT.’

Served him right. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. It was going to take more than a wish on a star to undo this cataclysmic fuck-up. 

Starlight, star bright, blah blah blah - I’d love to be able to come clean to Lois about everything, someday. If that would be okay with the universe.

If he’d been looking for a sign, he got one. The universe heard him and replied immediately.

No can do, Clark. Lois finds the concept of your existence terrifying to contemplate. Better luck with your next wish, buddy!

Clark pulled the blanket completely over his head. Ironically, Lois had gotten most of her interview questions answered in the parking lot at the bar. Where did Superman come from? No fucking clue. With some tweaking his mopey little monologue would have been her long-sought cover story:

February 29th in rural Kansas: A lovely young couple, Jonathan and Martha Kent, got the shock of their lives when an object they at first thought took to be a meteor, crash-landed on their property. Instead of a big-ass rock, they found space junk of a different kind: A busted-up rocket ship with a very fresh baby inside. Said baby was basically normal until middle school. Then the shit hit the fan big-time. 

Yeah, okay, Lois would never put the phrase ‘lovely young couple’ in print, that was pure bias on his part. Still the story held up in essentials. Clark hadn’t been dumped, he’d been hurled through Earth’s atmosphere fast enough to leave a smoking crater on ground that was frozen solid in late winter. By whom? Couldn’t tell you. For what purpose? No clue. Survival, if you asked his parents. Because someone, somewhere loved him.

The suit was proof of that, at least as far as his mother was concerned.

Clark did not remember his biological family (if he had one - hey, maybe Lois was right and he'd been birthed directly out of a test tube and taken care of by a robot arm). He definitely didn’t remember wherever it was he’d come from, be it Earth, or somewhere else. He knew he hadn’t been left in a box, like a litter of puppies for sale. He’d seen the ship, his parents kept it under a tarp in the storm cellar. He hadn’t liked to look at it when he was a kid, or think about it too much. Clark preferred to pretend that he was left on the front porch like an Amazon package, not ripped out of a smoking hole in the ground. When he was really little, he imagined a stork was involved.

Once he was a teenager, things changed. He changed. And wanted to know why (really, he wanted to know how to make it stop ).

The old spaceship had no answers. Pa thought it may have gotten broken on impact. Once, during a conversation that made Clark feel so guilty he wanted to crawl out of his own skin, Pa got teary-eyed - he apologized for the fact that he and Ma might have damaged it themselves. They were more interested in getting him out and safe than preserving the vessel he came in for future study. By their own admission, they whaled on the thing with wrenches and crow bars busting him out, but it wasn’t like Clark could fault them for their priorities. If he was in their shoes he’d have done the exact same thing - had, in fact, performed similar acts himself. If he was going to prioritize saving a life or preserving the structural integrity of a car, train, plane, or boat, he was choosing the life, every time.

That was Current Clark. Adult Clark. Superman Clark.  Not Sullen Teenage Clark who was in the midst of an objectively difficult experience and opted to be incredibly dramatic about it.       

“Maybe I’m a failed experiment,” Clark theorized to his mother on a particularly bad day. He was lying on the couch with his eyes closed; when they were open he couldn’t get them to stop looking through things rather than at things. Ma used her limited PTO to spend the day with him, just to keep him company, even though there wasn’t anything she could do to help him. 

She let him put his head in her lap and was carding her fingers through his hair in a way that he usually found soothing, but couldn’t at the time. 

“Maybe I’m science garbage,” he opined dismally. “A biohazard, and the spaceship was literally a trash can - ”

Ma flicked him on his ear. It didn’t actually hurt, but he flinched as a reflex.

“Don’t talk about my baby that way, ” she chided him. “Anyway, that’s not true. Whoever gave you to us loved you.”

Clark looked at her with a frown. It didn’t occur to him until later that her face was the only thing he’d been able to see properly all day. “Mom, you don’t know - ”

“Oh, I do,” she contradicted him at once. “I know that. When Papa and I saw that rocket, I’ll tell you, we weren’t too…kindly disposed to whoever put you in it. But then I saw you, all wrapped up tight…someone bundled you up. They wanted you safe and they wanted you cozy. They cared, Clark. They loved you. And that’s not just something I believe, that’s something I know for a fact is true.”

When Clark had imagined his arrival on earth, he pictured a baby in a five-point harness, like a car seat for an itty-bitty astronaut. Apparently that wasn’t it. He came swaddled, in yards and yards of red and blue fabric with a little emblem that sort of looked like the letter ‘S’. Maybe it was a good-luck charm, maybe it was religious in nature, maybe it was a logo for a company that made baby-sized spaceships, he had no way of knowing. But his mom was convinced it was tucked in with him by someone who loved him once. So he wore it around, hoping against hope that he might find out some of the answers Lois wanted to know for himself, one day. 

In the meantime, although he didn’t know where he’d come from, who he was before he came to be with his parents, why he’d come here, how he could do all the things he could do. That’d be pretty frustrating for Lois. Superman couldn’t answer her ‘Who, Where, Why, and How,’ questions, but he could answer her ‘what’: What’s your intended purpose?

The answer to that one was easy: He intended to use the abilities he had, however he had them, wherever they’d come from - to help. Plain and simple didn’t always make good copy, but that was the truth. 

He was definitely not interested in taking over the world - why would someone want the responsibility of taking care of the whole world, anyway? Clark had regular panic attacks about bills he’d actually paid, never mind trying to keep the lights on globally, make sure everyone had food, shelter, healthcare, disaster relief, functioning justice systems…yeah. He was simply too anxious for megalomania.

Speaking of all-nighters, the closest he’d come to banging up against that eight-day max he’d hit in college was the first week after he donned the suit and started crafting the Superman persona. It was like all the anxiety of the night before, plus the extra growing pains of deciding to do something that was objectively useful, but also insanely ambitious. He felt like once he started helping he could never stop. There was always somewhere he could intervene, it seemed, whether it was a natural or man-made disaster. He was constantly on high-alert, trying to tune in everywhere at once for a scream or a crash, or a cry for help that he might be able to answer. 

It didn’t take him a full week to realize: It was way, way too much. He couldn’t be in two places at the same time. And he was very quickly going to burn himself out into inaction if he tried. 

As usual, Pa had something to say about it. He had two big maxims when it came to Superman that Clark tried to internalize because they were smart and they were right: You can’t fix broken systems. You can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. 

Jonathan Kent was very much the anti-Yoda in that way. Rather than, ‘Do or do not, there is no “try,”’ Pa believed that everyone should try their best, while accepting that their best might not always be good enough. Or, as the Macho Man Randy Savage once said, “Understand this: Nobody likes a quitter. Nobody said life was easy, so if you get knocked down, take the standing eight count, get back up and fight again - and you’re a Macho Maniac. Dig it.”

Then, as now, Clark just crawled into bed, turned on his white noise machine so he had something close by to concentrate on, and tried to get himself to relax enough to sleep - which sent him on another thought spiral.

Would Lois find it humanizing if she knew Superman slept? Would she find it selfish? Like, get your big blue ass back in gear, there are people who need help? She did say she’d prefer it if Superman was a machine…

Clark hadn’t consciously tried to make Superman robotic; what he was going for was more along the lines of The Ultimate Adult. Someone who could be counted on, who was responsible, and competent, and reassuring without making things too personal. On that last point he tried, but didn’t always do (Master Yoda would have given up on him already). 

Just that night, he managed to contain the wildfire before it got too bad, but there was one family whose house was a total loss. He managed to get the family and the pets out, but the youngest child was crying and he heard her ask where ‘Toasty Buns’ was. He went back inside, thinking there was a rabbit, but instead found a terry cloth stuffy in her bed, undamaged, but smelling of smoke. 

Fresh air was the best cure for bad smells, so he took Toasty Buns on a little flight to air out. He managed to get the critter back to the little girl before the ambulance left. 

“There you go, darlin’,” he’d said and he totally forgot to do the Superman Voice at all. It was like he was talking to one of the Ross sisters (or a drunk Lois Lane). 

As Lois pointed out, the Superman Voice was not at all similar to Clark’s Kermit the Frog voice. It was a less exaggerated version of his Movie Trailer Guy voice that he used in high school when he did the morning announcements: bland, authoritative, the kind of newscaster accent that was solidly American, but not from anywhere. 

Sometimes he slipped. Pete texted him last year, when a clip of Superman talking to station personnel after stopping a train collision went viral.

Think that boy’s local? He hit them Rs REAL hard.

Clark tried to soften up the Rs after that; not tonight though. Maybe he was tired.

That seemed to be the case; Clark fell asleep in the middle of his whirlwind of self-recrimination and despair. The next thing he knew, the covers were being pulled off his head and his mother greeted him the way she always did when she woke him up before school when he was a kid.

“Mornin’, Sunshine!” She paused, then amended, “Well, afternoon, but who’s counting?”

“Oh, shit,” Clark groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. He reached for his glasses out of habit and popped them on. His alarm clock said 12:07 and the daylight streaming in made it clear that it was PM. He’d been out for six hours.

“You’re good,” Ma reassured him. She held up her phone and NPR’s headlines flashed before his eyes at a blink-and-you-miss-it speed. “Nothing’s come up since that wildfire you took care of - nice work, baby.”

“Ma!” Clark exclaimed, nodding his head in the direction of the guest room. A second later, he realized why his mother was so openly attributing Superman’s actions to him - Lois wasn’t in the house at all.

“She and Lana’re thrifting,” she informed Clark. “Left a few hours ago, said they’d get lunch in town. You can meet ‘em or not. Lois wanted to see if she could grab some boots for tonight.”

Tonight? What was tonight? They had zero plans for tonight because, as Clark already explained to Lois, after the fair, he’d sort of been winging it as far as plans went.

It turned out, plans had been made without him; they were heading back to McKenna’s to experience Two-Step Tuesdays (and their $2 margaritas). Boots weren’t necessarily required for line dancing, but they definitely enhanced the experience. 

“Cool,” Clark said, rubbing his hands over his face. He wasn’t groggy, he snapped into wakefulness pretty quickly, regardless of how much sleep he needed or got. When he looked up, his mother was standing by the bed, looking closely at him. 

“You look exhausted,” she said, reaching out and pushing his hair off his face. He felt her hand linger on his forehead for a second, like she was checking his temperature. “You and Lois were out so late, I thought you might be, y’know. Spending some private time - ”

“Not you too,” Clark groaned, falling back down on his pillows. “One or two is a coincidence, three or more is a conspiracy.”

The mattress dipped slightly as Ma sat down beside him. Without looking at her, he could hear the smile evident in her voice. 

“Clark, I love you," she said, gearing up for a slew of compliments which prefaced a criticism. Like a compliment sandwich, but one slice of bread. An open-faced compliment sandwich, with many toppings. "You are so smart, and so kind, and such a hard worker, but don’t have a poker face. At all. Honestly, baby, I thought y’all were together before you got here, I thought that was why you brought her around!”

Clark opened his eyes and shook his head. 

“We’re not,” he said definitively. “And we won’t be. The end. Sorry to disappoint you - ”

“I’m not disappointed,” Ma said. “You are, though. Like I said, no poker face. You want to talk about it?”

Whether or not he wanted to talk about it, Mama definitely did want to talk. That was another thing he’d inherited from her, in addition to his coping mechanisms: a rubber face. And a slight tendency for dramatics. When he talked to Pa, he made an effort to curb the hyperbole, just because his dad had limited patience for that kind of thing. Not Ma, though. If life was an improv show (which...yeah, it sort of was, when you thought about it), Martha Kent was always willing to, 'Yes, and,' any situation, either physically or emotionally.

“I flew too close to the sun - ”

“Need me to patch up the suit?”

Then again, sometimes she could be ridiculously literal.

“It’s a metaphor,” Clark clarified. “I metaphorically flew too close to the sun when I thought I could…I don’t know what I was doing. Taking a temperature check with Lois, I guess - uh, yes?”

Ma held up a hand, like she was asking a question at school. “Is that a euphemism?”

“MOTHER.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Mama apologized, patting Clark’s knee over his blankets. She didn’t even try to hide the smile. “I’m being very serious, this is a serious conversation. Go for it.”

Then she made an exaggerated Serious Face that had Clark cracking a smile. Objectively, nothing happened. Nothing changed. Lois was no closer to knowing the truth about Superman than she had been yesterday. It was just Clark’s essential sense of self that was rocked to the core. Like he said, nothing at all, in the grand scheme of things. 

“I just found out what Lois thinks about Superman,” Clark summarized. “It’s…not great.”

Ma frowned, the Serious Face falling away, replaced with a genuinely somber expression. 

“What’d y’all talk about?" she asked, gently. “How much did you tell her about yourself?”

“We weren’t talking about me,” Clark clarified. “We were talking about Superman.”

Ma made a face and he instantly knew why. She didn’t like it when Clark referred to himself and Superman like they were two completely separate beings. He tried to explain to her that, in a way, they were. Like, the differences Lois observed between Metropolis Clark and Smallville Clark only on a massive scale. To borrow an example from Lois, if Metropolis Clark was a 500-piece puzzle, Superman was just one big ol’ picture. Nothing to put together. It was better that way. If Superman was boring, he was less likely to be frightening. 

Based on what Lois said, that was exactly what he needed to do, but horrifying, was the word she used. If Superman was just some random guy, it would be horrifying.  

“Lois doesn’t like ‘Superman’?” she guessed and Clark looked down at the comforter, idly picking dog hair off it. 

“Lois would prefer Superman was a robot with an off switch,” Clark replied. “Because that’s infinitely less scary than imagining Superman is a person. If she found out Superman was a person, she’d be horrified. And that’s a quote.”

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” Ma said, with a sigh. She reached out and nudged Clark’s chin, urging him to raise his eyes and look at her.

She’d pulled a similar move on him many times, most memorably after his heat vision kicked in and he practically destroyed her car. Nearly killed her. Mama didn’t remember it that way, but he always would. He had no idea what was happening and she was so close, if he hadn’t turned his head away…

Clark swore to himself he’d never open his eyes again in the immediate aftermath. He was completely petrified of himself, of what he could do, what he’d almost done. 

Not Mama. She went right up to him, held his head in her hands and told him to open his eyes. Said it was okay, even though she had no way of being sure that it was. Clark believed her. Maybe he just wanted to believe her. He opened his eyes. And nothing happened; it was as Ma said, she was just fine.

He looked at her now and saw a similar look on her face as she’d worn a decade before. A little sad. A lot worried. Mostly full of love.

“She’s not wrong,” Mama said carefully. “Hell, I can think of…maybe two, three people I’ve known in my life that I’d trust with half of all what you can do - one of ‘em’s your daddy. It’s…a lot. You know that better than anybody.”

His mother was right. If there was one person in the world who was the most terrified of what Superman was capable of, that person was Clark Kent. That was one of the reasons Clark worked so hard at what he did. To use his abilities to take care of people. Not to scare them.

Last night, Clark called Lois out for her trust issues and he realized that wasn’t fair of him. Lois might not trust anyone, but she also saw through bullshit better than anyone in the world. She saw through Superman; and what she saw scared her. At the end of the day, he could never forget that.

“But,” Ma continued. “Superman’s not just the powers - he’s you. And, you know, when you were in high school, I used to think all the time, ‘Ugh, why him, why my son? It’s not fair, why can’t he get to be a regular kid?’ Lots of bitching and moaning.”

Yeah, that was something Clark also wondered. Why me? When, as Lois so astutely pointed out, he was just some random guy.

“Of course, now I know better,” she said, giving his cheeks a little squeeze, smooshing his face between her hands. Clark probably looked absolutely ridiculous, but he didn’t mind. Again, ridiculous was better than horrifying. “It’s because it’s you. Because you’ve got a good heart. Because you can be trusted with all that power, in a way most people can’t be.”

You're wrong, Clark wanted to say. Lois doesn't trust anyone. She sure as hell doesn't trust me. Not to take her on a trip. Not to be Superman. She said I was horrifying. That just the idea of me was horrifying. Imagine if she knew the truth.

He did not say any of that. Lois didn't trust him, but his mom did. Maybe not a ringing endorsement, all things considered. But Clark would be lying if said his mother's faith in him didn't make him feel a little better. Anyway, it was hard to have a serious conversation when one's face was pressed into a position which resembled a front-view of a trout.

“Aside from Pa?” Clark asked, voice slightly muffled because his mouth was squished. Ma laughed and let him go.

“Aside from Pa…most of the time,” she said. “Listen, your father’s just about the best guy in the world, but I wouldn’t trust him not to hurl a car clean off the road if they’re going fifty in the fast lane. You, on the other hand, would never.”

“They might be a new driver,” Clark pointed out and Ma grinned at him, getting up off the bed.

“See?” she said with a warm smile, ruffling his hair. “There’s that sweetness comes natural to you. Lois’ll see it - she does see it in you, I guarantee, maybe it’s not...”

She trailed off, then shrugged her shoulders.

“You know what?” she said brightly, clapping her hands. “Some things are not my business to meddle with. All I can say is Lois is looking to cut a rug in some new shoes and she’ll need a partner.”

Ma was half-way out the door when Clark got the implication of what she was saying.

“Wait, she’s not going with Lana?” he asked, feeling the panic that was temporarily quelled come roaring back to the surface.

Ma smiled at him, all the sweetness in the world in her expression. That was enough to get him sweating again. 

“I already polished up your boots and pressed your good jeans,” she told him. “Pick out a nice shirt, baby. We’re going dancing tonight.”

Chapter Text

The Clark Puzzle had a new piece: The man could not hang after 12AM. 

For the first time in the trip, Lois woke up before Clark and ate breakfast with his parents while he slept in. Because staying up past midnight just fucked that much with his circadian rhythms. Poor baby. 

At first, it looked like it was just going to be her and Mrs. Kent vs. a big stack of waffles, but Mr. Kent sat down and joined them with a cup of coffee he brought in from outside.

“Hey!” Mrs. Kent exclaimed, like she was surprised to see him. “You done already?”

“Am I done? Nope. Work’s done though,” he said, rolling his eyes. Belatedly he noticed Lois, took off his baseball cap and gave her a thin smile. “Mornin’ Lois, how’d you sleep?”

“Um, fine, thank you,” she said, her mastery of how to talk to adult friends’ parents when you were also an adult still a work in progress. 

Mr. Kent nodded and his smile broadened when he noticed the waffles. “Damn, girl, this a special occasion?”

The open affection between the two of them was something Lois still wasn’t used to. It wasn’t as if the Kents were necking like teenagers, but they were very fond of PDA. Or, like, Private Displays of Affection since they were in their own house. Either way, Mr. Kent slid his arms around Mrs. Kent’s waist and leaned over her shoulder to kiss her cheek. It was very, very sweet. But they were also Clark’s parents and, well, parents in general, so it was also very, very weird. 

“Lois is here,” she pointed out. “That’s special enough - anyway, we’ll be getting breakfast on the road tomorrow, so I figured her last morning was worth whipping some egg whites for.”

“You whip ‘em by hand?”

“You bet your ass I did.”

Mr. Kent gave a low whistle and Mrs. Kent got another kiss. Then he let go of his wife to load up his plate with waffles.

“You gotta come back regular, Lois,” he said as he sat down. “When it’s just Clark and me, Mama doesn’t go all out like this.”

Lois gave a slightly forced laugh, so that Mr. Kent wouldn’t think she was taking him seriously and make breakfast awkward. The waffles wouldn’t go down as well if he had to backtrack his invitation, which was so clearly given in jest. Not that she thought the Kents were bothered to have her around, but the likelihood that she’d ever be back was slim to none. 

She was determined to enjoy it while it lasted, which included getting seconds. The waffle pile dwindled and Lois had a moment of wondering how many she should leave for Clark. The waffling over waffles (God, she was hilarious) lasted only a second before she decided that Clark would be okay with cold cereal. You snooze, you lose. In this case, literally.

“What’s on the calendar for today?” Mr. Kent asked, looking between the two of them speculatively.

“Winging it,” Mrs. Kent said, hitching one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Figured we could do the drive-in, if it’s showing something good. Maybe see if anywhere’s got a fireworks show going tonight.”

Lois raised her eyebrows at that. She assumed the Kent's Tuesday evenings were sacrosanct.

“Isn’t this date night for you guys?” she asked, giving a shoulder shimmy for emphasis. “Boogie Woogie Tuesday or something?”

Mr. and Mrs. Kent both laughed like she was the funniest person in the world.

“Okay, I love that,” Mrs. Kent said. “I’m going to talk to Gloria about switching it up. Nah, we don’t need to head off on our own. It’s your last night here, we figured we’d do something for y’all, take you out. Our treat.”

“Of course, if you want to come to the dancing, you’re welcome,” Mr. Kent offered. “Line dancing’s easy, there’s nothing to remember. Brian’s boyfriend Miguel does the calling. As long as you know your right foot from your left foot, you’re good.”

Lois considered the question. On the one hand, she was up for anything. On the other hand, Clark was not. This was his vacation too, if he really hated dancing, it would be deeply uncool to twist his arm about it. She'd already taken his waffles from him, surely she could leave him his dignity.

“Cover includes all you can eat empanadas,” Mrs. Kent added. “And two dollar margs.”

Oh, yeah never mind. Screw Clark's waffles and his dignity, Lois wanted to dance the night away while drinking cheap liquor and pounding delicious pastry. Clark could just stand by the pinball machines waiting for a challenger, he’d probably enjoy that.

“Do I need special footwear?” Lois asked, no longer needing to consider anything, they were doing this. Narrowing her eyes, she thought back to her night-before text chain with Clark and her conviction that his preferences didn't matter increased since he'd clearly lied to her about something really important. “Do I need cowboy boots?”

“No,” Mr. Kent shook his head.

“You don’t need them,” Mrs. Kent agreed. “But they’re nice to have if someone stomps on your foot. You could borrow a pair of mine - what’s your shoe size?” 

Lois told her and the two of them mutually agreed that borrowing shoes was not going to happen.

“Let me give Lana a call,” Mrs. Kent suggested. Then she did something absolutely bonkers. She walked up to a phone that was attached to the wall, picked up a receiver that was attached to the base by a cord, dialed a number and waited. 

Lois had not seen a landline in use since she was in single-digits. She assumed the phone in the Kent’s kitchen was, if not purely decorative, at least non-functional. While she gawped, she listened to Mrs. Kent’s half of the conversation. 

“Hey, honey! Good, how’re you? Quick question - do you have any boots size seven? No, I know, me too. Lois is just looking for a pair to wear for dancing tonight…maybe y’all could go shopping?”

As soon as Mrs. Kent asked the question, she held the receiver at arm’s length away from her ear. A second later, Lois understood why as Lana squealed her reply over the telephone wires.

“OhmyGod, yes! Absolutely! Yes, a million times! This’ll be easy, we can get something SO cute second-hand, they’ve always got the smaller sizes just languishing on the shelves. Does Lois mind wearing other people’s shoes? Shoes that have maybe been worn by dead people?”

“I don’t mind!” Lois called, hoping against hope that the ancient tech in the Kent household would pick up her reply. It did because Lana woo-hooed in response.

“This is perfect! Only can we use your car? The A/C in the station wagon’s busted and it’s horrific outside.”

“Want me to take a look?” Mr. Kent asked. 

Clark’s dad was not willing to keep up the four-way shouting at the phone and got up, holding out his hand for the receiver. His conversation with Lana was typically brief and to the point; he said he’d head right over to look at Ruth’s car and, if it couldn’t be fixed, they could use one of the Kents’ vehicles to go shopping.

Mr. Kent put his dishes in the sink and poured the remainder of the coffee pot into a metal container with a lid.

Mrs. Kent side-eyed the coffee pot. “We’re not saving any for Clark?”

“That boy doesn’t need the caffeine,” he said pointedly. “I do. See you in a minute, lady.”

“Bye, fella,” Mrs. Kent said, snagging a kiss before her husband left. Mr. Kent gave Lois a quick smile and shut the screen behind him. Immediately, Mrs. Kent dumped the old grounds into the compost trash and brewed a fresh pot - double strength. 

“I’ll put it in the fridge, Clark can have it cold,” she explained, shrugging out of the loose linen shirt she’d been wearing. “Lana’s right, it’s damn hot.”

She was only wearing a tank top underneath and Lois saw, for the first time, that Mrs. Kent was tatted up. She had the makings of a sleeve running halfway down her arm, starting at her shoulder, a riot of colors. On her right arm there were black outlines of flowers, very pretty and delicate, like illustrations from an old-time almanac. They also stopped just above her elbow. 

“Those are so cool!” Lois said enthusiastically. For a moment, Mrs. Kent looked taken aback, like she didn’t know what Lois was talking about, then she glanced down at her arms and smiled.

“Well, thank you!” she replied, flattered. “I’ve been seeing the same girl in Kansas City since grad school - every time Jonathan has a doctor’s appointment up there, I book a session, either for a new one or clean-up. School handbook says teachers can’t have visible tattoos, I’m hoping they change that rule before I retire - since menopause I can’t do long sleeves all day and I’m running out of room.”

Not for the first time this trip, Lois wondered why the hell Mrs. Kent was in Smallville. She knew how - Mr. Kent inherited a whole ass house and was like, ‘Come with me and be my farm bride,’ and she was like, ‘Okay.’ The how was pretty clear, but the why was still baffling for her.

Lois had seen her art, heard about her rah-rah women thesis. By rights, Mrs. Kent shouldn't have been 'Mrs.' anyone - she didn't even seem like the kind of person who would have changed her last name when she got married. She should have ended up in a college town, like Northampton, running a queer bookshop-cum-bar or renting a gallery space in one of those renovated Victorian mansions that were rezoned to become multi-use performance venues. Or, if she genuinely liked teaching, she should be doing it at a fancy private school where students didn’t get grades, called their teachers by their first names, and were allowed - nay, encouraged - to have visible ink. 

Instead she was teaching art at a Podunk high school, cleaning up sticky breakfast dishes, and making iced coffee for her twenty-six year old son who was passed out in his childhood bedroom after staying up too late the night before. Hardly living the dream.

Like, Mr. Kent loved farming, that was pretty clear by how much time he spent out doing farm stuff and he could not do farm stuff in a pretentious New England college town. He had his land, his lady, Lois could see how life was good for him, but…surely, sometimes, Mrs. Kent had to look at her life and be totally consumed with regret. Right?

“Do you like living here?” Lois asked Mrs. Kent, picking up a dish towel to dry the breakfast plates because she felt like she should do something to help.

Mrs. Kent looked down at her with a knowing smirk.

“I hear what you’re asking,” she said. “But I think what you’re getting at is: ‘How can you stand living out here?’ Or am I wrong?”

Oof. She was not wrong.

“It’s just…” Lois applied herself to making sure that every last drop of water was scrubbed off the blue ceramic plate she was holding. The lack of maker’s marks or stamps made her suspect that Mrs. Kent made it herself. “You gave up your whole life to come out here.”

“Did I?” Mrs. Kent asked, going full-on Socratic method on her. It felt very teacherly, like she was rooting for Lois to find the right answer, but wasn’t going to spoon-feed her. “It wasn’t much of a life. I had student teaching, which I was finishing up. I liked derby okay, but it was mostly a chance to get together with people. I had some friends, but not…close ones. Mostly people you pass the time with, you know?”

Lois did know. Until very recently 'friend' and 'person you spend time with to stave off boredom and loneliness' were one in the same to her. It seemed like she and Mama Kent had more in common than she realized.

“I do like Smallville, it’s…different from where I grew up, in a good way,” Mrs. Kent was quick to add. “This here’s the kind of town where a big storm or bad weather could just…wreck a person, a family. So folks are real neighborly - they have to be, for survival, if nothing else. I grew up in a small town too, but it wasn’t as rural. Small enough for everyone to be in each other’s business, full of holier-than-thou types who thought being neighborly was telling everyone how to think, how to act. Wouldn't come over to pump out the cellar after a flood or deliver food if someone had a broken leg, though. Just said they'd pray on it.”

Mrs. Kent frowned at a particularly stubborn splotch of syrup on a plate and she scrubbed harder than was strictly necessary. 

“Still,” Mrs. Kent continued, waging war against the plates. “Jonathan could’ve asked me up to the moon to farm space dust. I probably would’ve gone with him. I think I could abide just about anything, so long as that man’s in hollering distance.”

“Oh, wow,” Lois said, more an involuntary gasp than a real response. The kind of knee-jerk reaction a person had when they were hearing about another’s physical or psychological trauma. Like Clark turning green when he heard about her fracturing her arm on the swings.

Most people would have found Mrs. Kent’s declaration lovely, highly romantic, even. For Lois it sounded…dangerous. To put that much faith in another person, to rely on them so much - what happened when they let you down?

Thirty years was a long time. Longer than Lois had actually been alive, which was a trip to think about. When Mrs. Kent packed up her life and followed a guy she barely knew to Smallville, she’d probably been Lois’s age…younger, realistically. If she was just finishing up grad school, she was probably twenty-three, twenty-four. How had she possibly felt like it was okay to rely on someone else like that?

Like, Lois could wrap her head around Mrs. Kent taking a job in the sticks, if Mr. Kent didn't factor into the decision. If she hated the town or the job or the people, if she felt like she’d totally fucked up and blown up her life, it would all be on her. It would suck, but it would be within her control, the blame, the responsibility for changing things. Other people getting too close, ceding control to someone else…it was messy. More than that, it was risky.

Lois wasn’t risk-averse in most areas of her life, just…maybe when it came to people. Anyway, that thought she had earlier, about her and Mrs. Kent maybe being similar? Forget it. Lois never would have taken a chance on someone the way Mrs. Kent took a chance on her husband. They were nothing alike.

“You liked him that much?” Lois asked, incredulously. “Hadn’t you only known him, like, a minute?”

Mrs. Kent laughed and dried her hands. She nodded her head toward the front porch and talked as they went outside, Callie trotting along behind them.

“I’d known him a little longer than that,” she said, holding the door so Lois could head out first. “We’d been dating about six months when his grandaddy died. He’d actually invited me to come back here with him before that. He was headed home for spring planting, wanted me to meet his grandpa."

Mrs. Kent did the same thing Clark did when he was thoughtful; stared out ahead of her, eyes a little unfocused. Like she was looking for the right words and thought she'd find them on the horizon line.

"I said no," she sighed. "I thought it’d be weird, his grandfather wouldn't want to meet me, we hadn’t known each other too long, I wasn't good with parents, just a bunch of excuses. I stayed put, Jonathan went home.  His grandpa was dead before the harvest - bad heart from scarlet fever when he was a kid. That was my chance and I blew it.”

Lois took a seat on the porch swing and Callie jumped up to join her. Mrs. Kent sat down in a rocking chair and looked out at the driveway and the sky and the fields stretching out all around. A view she’d probably seen a million times and would see a million more times. Lois couldn't imagine she didn't get sick of it from time to time. She would be. 

“You didn’t…I mean, you didn’t know that you were going to marry the guy,” Lois pointed out, sensibly. “Not then.”

“Didn’t I?” Mrs. Kent asked with a rueful smile. She leaned forward, a light in her eyes, like she and Lois were girlfriends and she was so excited to tell her about this guy she’d just met and not like she was talking about her husband of three decades. “I thought he was cute from the first time I saw him, way back when he was a ref calling penalties on me. But lots of people are cute. When I tell you, that man has swagger…”  

She blushed. She honest-to-God blushed thinking about her husband. That was almost as shocking to Lois as the landline.

“When we got to talking, I asked him - keep in mind, it’s the 90s, so we hadn’t perfected etiquette around pronouns,” Mrs. Kent recalled. “I asked him, ‘So, are you a boy, a girl, or something else?’ and he says to me - with this smile and this confidence - he says, ‘Honey, I’m a man.’ And I was…gone.”

Mrs. Kent's enthusiasm was catching. Lois remembered her first impression of Mr. Kent, recalled the series of faded photos in the kitchen, him looking like a cross between Heath Ledger and a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

The Marlboro Man strikes again, Lois thought, hiding a smile.

“I didn't come to Kansas City looking for a man, but I sure as hell found one," Mrs. Kent continued. "No way I was gonna let that boy go. I felt that right away. Just took me longer to know it, that’s all. But I’ll tell you, missing out on meeting Mr. Clark is one of my biggest regrets.”

Mr. Clark. Mr. Kent’s grandpa. Clark was named after him, clearly. 

Lois nodded, slowly. Mrs. Kent saw something apprehensive in her expression and reached over to pat her knee.

“I’m not saying this is advice for living,” she said reassuringly. “I’m not telling every girl out there to run off with the first hot farmer who smiles at ‘em nice. It worked out for me, though. It’s still working out - I’ll let you know if that changes.”

“Cool,” Lois said because, really, what else was there to say? She might be skeptical of Mrs. Kent’s claims that she was living her best life, but she wasn’t dumb enough or contrary enough to try and argue the point with her. Still, it seemed a little too…idyllic. “How’d your family react?”

Pay dirt.

Lois had the thought before she knew why. It was like a sixth sense for a journalist, realizing that they’d discovered fertile ground for a story. It was subtle, like a shift in the direction of the wind. The muscles in Mrs. Kent’s face went tense, her eyes got a wariness to them and her voice, when she spoke, was uncharacteristically cautious.

“Jonathan and Clark are my family,” Mrs. Kent said carefully. “Joey and Becks and the kids, Lana and Ruthie too. I haven’t asked them what they thought about me moving out here, but I think they’re happy about it.” 

There was a brief silence, a long moment where Mrs. Kent looked at Lois, considering whether she wanted to elaborate. Lois tensed slightly (Callie the dog noticed and raised her head slightly, to rest her head on Lois’s knee, as if in support). This was a watershed moment in interviews; when the subject was thinking about spilling the beans on something important, but were canny enough to know that it might not be in their best interest to do so. 

Lois waited it out. She was at the beginning of her career, but she knew enough not to make rookie mistakes like backtracking or making a joke, giving her an easy out. Mrs. Kent would tell her or not, and she’d be more likely to keep talking if Lois kept her mouth shut.

The strategy paid off. 

“The ones who raised me, they aren’t family,” Mrs. Kent said at last. “I haven’t spoken to them since before I got married - I was thrilled to pieces to change my name. It was the last thing tying me to them and I didn’t want it - I did want to be a Kent really bad though. The Kents are good people.”

Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry about that, this isn’t any of my business, I shouldn’t have pried, is what Lois would have said were she an ordinary person. However, she was not an ordinary person. She was Lois Lane, of the Daily Planet (Lois Freaking Lane, according to Clark). One did not get a press pass by apologizing for prying. 

It was a little surprising to hear Mrs. Kent speaking so negatively about her own parents, being such a great mom herself. Lois assumed parenting aptitude was passed down in the genes, like dimples or red hair. Maybe it was recessive.

“Who cut who off?” Lois asked, never one to miss a good follow-up. 

It was mutual, Mrs. Kent explained. She stayed in her parents’ house until college; between scholarships and work-study, she could just about afford tuition. Since she wasn’t relying on them for money, she felt safe enough to come out, live life on her own terms. And once she did that, she knew she wouldn’t be safe if she went back to her hometown. 

“I never called them, they never called me,” Mrs. Kent concluded. “And that’s for the best, believe me.”

The sense of heaviness that pervaded her conversation with Lana about her own upbringing settled on Lois again, blurring the line between intimate conversation and juicy interview. ‘Cutting out toxic people,’ was one of the internet’s favorite pieces of advice, but she’d never met anyone who’d actually done it - certainly not for three decades.  

Lois hesitated before asking, “You didn’t tell them you got married? You didn’t…you didn’t tell them about Clark?”

The look on Mrs. Kent gave her the answer immediately: Of course not.

“They don’t deserve to know them,” Mrs. Kent replied immediately. “Not my son or my husband. They haven’t earned that. The hell they put me through? I’d never trust them with Clark. He’s a gift - all kids are gifts. Not all parents get that.”

The fierce conviction with which she spoke was moving. It was such a pat expression, ‘all kids are gifts,’ but the way Mrs. Kent said didn’t make it sound as though she thought kids were delicate porcelain dolls, to be put on a shelf and lovingly gazed at. She said it like she thought children should be defended to the death and if anyone didn’t understand that, she’d make them understand. Possibly while armed with a flame-thrower or something equally impressive and lethal.

Lois Freaking Lane was on dangerous grounds; nothing could fuck up an interviewer faster than being told something they desperately wanted to hear. So she fell back on those rookie mistakes: deflect, backtrack, make a joke. Getting a little further away from the truth that was more about her than the subject at hand. 

“I mean, you didn’t know little Lois,” Lois said with an awkward smile and a rough chuckle. Mrs. Kent didn’t smile back.

“Baby girl,” she said with that same ferocity Lois heard in her voice when Mrs. Kent declared that all kids were gifts. 

She actually reached out and took Lois’s hand, a contact Lois allowed. Mrs. Kent’s hands weren’t as work-hardened as her husband’s but her grip was strong. She made intense eye contact and said, “I don’t know your story, I’m not asking you to tell me. But listen here: You are a gift. And fuck anyone who ever made you think that wasn’t true - especially when you were a kid.”

Well, it was my mom, so, you know, she’d know better than anyone, right?

Lois almost said that, but she didn’t. Couldn’t. Her throat was really tight.

Mrs. Kent gave her fingers a squeeze and smiled at her.

“You’re one of ours now, in case that wasn’t clear,” she told her. “You ever need anything - and I mean, anything, you pick up that phone, okay? Text me. The second you touch down in Metropolis, I want to know you got there safe. And send me another when you get back to your apartment, just for my peace of mind, okay? I’ll tell you now, you’re invited for Thanksgiving if you can get the time to come down. Jonathan makes a whole rig to fry a turkey. I’d make fun of him for showing off, only it’s a really good turkey.”

No one - no one ever - not once in her life asked Lois to text them so they knew she got home safely. Martha Kent was the first.

A week ago - fuck it, yesterday, fifteen minutes ago, before Mrs. Kent held her hand and told her she was a gift, Lois wouldn’t have believed her. Would have thought it was one of those nice things people said, but didn’t mean. Like, ‘You’re welcome any time!’ ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do!’ ‘We’ll keep in touch!’ She would have blown it off like she had a million other similar invitations, like she had when Mr. Kent told her to come back so he’d get special breakfast.

Maybe it was the hand squeeze, the request for texts to reassure Mrs. Kent of her safety, but Lois was absolutely certain that she was invited to Kent Family Thanksgiving. And she really, really wanted to go.

“Thanks,” she said, hoarsely. 

A beep and the sound of a car coming down the driveway saved her from further embarrassing displays of vulnerability. An old station wagon was ambling toward the house and the closed windows indicated that the air conditioning was fixed.

Mr. Kent got out of the passenger seat after Lana parked the car. She leaped out, running toward the porch exclaiming, “My faves! Mama Kent, you coming with us?”

After hugs were distributed all around, Mrs. Kent demurred the offer to go thrifting. 

“I’ll wait on the boy to wake up,” she said, indicating Clark’s bedroom over their heads. Lana’s eyes lit up.

“He’s sleeping?” she asked, sounding like this was the most delightful news she’d ever heard. “I love that for him! How ‘bout you, Papa Kent?”

Mr. Kent chuckled, “I need to re-up Ruthie’s supply of coolant, but I’ll see you girls tonight?”

“Not me,” Lana sighed regretfully. “I tried to change my flight, but it was crazy expensive and I really should get back tomorrow. I’ve got time to shop, though! There’s always time to shop!”

“Wait, you’re not coming?” Lois asked, slightly crestfallen. “Who am I going to dance with? I thought you’d be my date!”

Lana closed her eyes and put a hand over her chest.

“Ugh, like a dagger to my heart,” she said before she brightened up and led Lois to the car. “Clark’ll dance with you, promise! I told you, he’ll dance on special occasions and you, Miss Lois Lane, are a whole damn parade all by yourself.”